


Kaitou Kid 1412 Fanclub Chat Room

by AbeLincolnLover



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:26:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 44,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23606770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AbeLincolnLover/pseuds/AbeLincolnLover
Summary: A chance encounter on an online chat room leaves two people with nothing in common with more questions than answers. Might this be the beginning of a cautious friendship... or something more?
Relationships: Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid & Nakamori Aoko
Comments: 13
Kudos: 39





	1. You Have 1 Unread Message(s)

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on FF.net around 8 years ago. Here it is in its original format. I plan to revise it one day, but until then... I present to you: Kaitou Kid 1412 Fanclub Chat Room.

Aoko was bored on that Monday night, when she had finished all her homework and chores. Perhaps that was the reason that she had turned her computer on and was surfing the web to find something to do. All she needed was something to occupy her mind until she calmed down enough to go to bed.

A site showed up under her google search of "chat rooms". She still wasn't really sure why she googled that. But the site that was shown looked almost like it was calling to her, so she clicked it, trying to ignore the fact that the link was called "Kaitou Kid 1412 Fanclub Chat Room". She had been doing a lot of out of character things that day, so why stop now?

The web-page loaded and she looked at the white chat screen. _Of course_ , she snorted _, it would be white. Stupid Kid's trademark color is white. Stupid, stupid thief... even the prices on object that are white have gone up, just because of him..._

She quickly surveyed the page to see if there was anything weird or disgusting on there that would provide reason to go back to the google search page. Nothing met her standards, so she started paying attention to the actual site itself.

A box popped up, telling her that she needed to create an account. _Normally, I wouldn't, but... I guess I will... if I end up hating this I'll just delete my account..._

User name: _KidKiller_

Password: _kuroba_

Not surprisingly, the user name was not taken. That, of course, was because practically everyone in the world was in love with the thief and nobody would ever dream of killing him. The password... well, Kaito was to never know about that. Ever.

Clicking the 'sign-up' button, she watched the page load and lead her to another page, where other people were talking. Sighing, she berated herself for actually participating in such a Kid-loving site before taking a look at the names of the other people.

 _Magicfan99_ was one... _Kait0uKidsWife8795_ was a second person... blah blah blah... aaand the only person that actually caught her eye was _KaitouKid_. Plain and simple. No numbers or anything. Those other people must be really jealous. Suddenly a notification on the side of the window brought her out of her thoughts.

'You have **1** unread message(s)'

 _Okay... that's weird. I just logged onto this site. Oooohh... it's probably hate-mail..._ Aoko thought as she clicked the message, which was surprisingly from that _KaitouKid_ guy.

 **KaitouKid:** Hi.

Short message. Well, it wouldn't hurt to respond.

 **KidKiller:** Hi...?

A few seconds later and his/her response came.

 **KaitouKid:** So. You aren't into Kaitou Kid all that much, are you?

Yup, that was exactly what she was expecting. It would have been really strange if it had been anything else, like "I was just wondering what your favorite color is". Turning back to the matter at hand, she decided that she could either lie or tell the truth. She chose the latter option.

 **KidKiller:** Eh, not really.

 **KaitouKid:** Have you ever met him in person?

 **KidKiller:** No, but my dad has. Multiple times. :(

 **KaitouKid:** Ooh, you don't seem too happy about that. What happened?

Now she was stuck. If she told the truth, it would be pretty much giving her identity away. If she lied, she would feel like a jerk - so she went with her gut and took the easy way out.

 **KidKiller:** Why do you care?

 **KaitouKid:** Is it wrong for me to care about other people?

 **KidKiller:** But why does it matter to you? It's not your problem and you've never met me. It should be that idiot thief instead of you that's asking me this stuff.

Whoops, that was bound to get that guy mad. Calling someone's idol an 'idiot' wasn't exactly the best thing to do to get someone to keep talking to you.

Nonetheless, he responded.

 **KaitouKid:** What if I told you I really am Kaitou Kid?

 **KidKiller:** Ha ha. Like I'm going to believe that.

Who did he think he was kidding, really, with such a blatant lie. Unless it wasn't a lie... but surely Kaitou Kid had better things to do than go on a fan-made website and chat to random people? Eh. It was probably a lie.

 **KaitouKid:** No, really, I am. What proof do you need?

 **KidKiller:** Fine. Answer me this: who did Kaitou Kid go up against on his second heist after he reappeared?

Thank goodness Kaito had told her all about him going up against Kid that time. Granted, after that time he had ended up pretty much worshipping the guy like he was a god, but that wasn't the point.

 **KaitouKid:** Some Kuroba Kaito guy. He was pretty annoying to deal with, but his magic tricks are pretty good. How'd you know about that? It never made it to papers, did it?

****. Way to turn the tables on her. Well. If the guy was Kaitou Kid, it didn't really matter if he knew who she was or not, since he probably knows more about her than the government does (and let me tell you, the government knows more about anyone than they do about themselves).

 **KidKiller:** He's a friend of mine.

 **KaitouKid:** Ah~! Boyfriend?

 **KidKiller:** No! Ew!

 **KaitouKid:** Nakamori-san's got a boyfriend~!

Whaaaaaat. How'd he find out her name?

 **KidKiller:** How do you know who I am?

 **KaitouKid:** Really, you didn't expect me to figure it out? I knew it was you from the moment you logged on. Only you would have that user name.

Oh, so Kid _was_ aware that she hated him. Maybe that was why he never gave her roses when he passed by her. Well, that was fine with her. It wasn't like she wanted one of those stupid flowers, anyway. No way, nuh-uh, nope, not a chance.

 **KidKiller:** So, anyway. Why are you talking to me?

 **KaitouKid:** Because I'm sooooooo bored. I have absolutely nothing to do.

 **KidKiller:** I'm a last resort?

 **KaitouKid:** No – this site is a last resort. You're just someone interesting to talk to.

That was an insult, right? Kaitou Kid would never compliment her, so... it was an insult, right?

 **KidKiller:** Why don't you go practice one of your stupid magic tricks?

 **KaitouKid:** …

 **KidKiller:** Tell me.

 **KaitouKid:** …

This was stupid. He was going to get one more chance and then she was going to log off. He wasn't worth trying to get an answer out of.

 **KaitouKid:** I kind of burnt three decks of playing cards. My mom wasn't happy about that.

 **KidKiller:** You still live with your mom?

 **KaitouKid:** ****

_KaitouKid has disconnected._

Aoko stared at the screen, deep in thought. Just in this short conversation, she had found out more about the master thief than all the rest of the information already collected by the police. One such thing was that he lived with his mother (that had been a complete guess when she had sent the message, but his reaction had confirmed it to be true). But now, only one thought was present in her mind...

_What the heck?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the first chapter. I've really got to stop making new stories. Anyway, I'm not sure how this story is going to go, but I'm thinking more of a romance between Kaitou Kid and Aoko, without Aoko finding out about Kaito's night job.  
> To clear the confusion, in my story I changed some stuff up a bit; Aoko thinks that Kaito really did go up against Kaitou Kid (Jii) in the first episode, but nothing ever made it to papers so she could only trust Kaito's word. The events of the first episode really did happen, though.
> 
> Have a great day!


	2. Wassup Girlll

Without reason, she decided to log back into the site again the next day. There was the same welcome message, the same chat box, and the same people online. It was strange how it seemed that the people had some type of routine that involved logging into that site every day.

Almost instantly after she came online, she received a notification identical to the one she got the day before.

'You have **1** unread message(s)'

_Please tell me it's not..._

She clicked on the box. It brought her to a chat window with a message from _KaitouKid_.

_Aaaand I was right. What does he want now?_

**KaitouKid:** Wassup girlll

_What._

**KidKiller:** What.

**KaitouKid:** Come on, play along. I'll start again. Wassup girlll

**KidKiller:** I still don't understand. What exactly are we doing?

_Why is that guy so confusing? I have absolutely no idea on how to respond to that. What is he expecting me to say?_

**KaitouKid:** Jeez, you're no fun. Anyway, how was school?

_I don't really want to know what his ulterior motive for asking me this is, but it isn't like there's any harm in responding, right?_

**KidKiller:** To be honest, not that great. Stupid Kaito was being annoying all day. He just doesn't know how to shut up sometimes. And... yeah. He's just really annoying.

**KaitouKid:** I thought you liked him.

_How did he know that?_

_Well, he's a criminal. Truth be told, he's good at what he does. He's good at keeping secrets. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to tell him, and besides – I've been holding it in for too long. I need to tell someone about my feelings towards him..._

**KidKiller:** I do, but he can get on my nerves a lot.

For some reason she had the feeling that someone was cheering and high-fiving himself at the moment. She brushed it off as having the creeps from talking to a wanted criminal.

**KaitouKid:** Oh, so you do like him? I was just guessing! Lol, Nakamori-san, you've got to be more careful with your secrets. They might get into the wrong hands if you are that loose with them. But don't worry – your secret is safe with me. ;)

_Son of a gun. He tricked me!_

_Well, I suppose that's how he gets away with everything. He_ has _to be pathological liar in order to get past Tou-san. He doesn't really have a choice in the matter... except for_ not _being a thief. He should just do that instead. Humph._

**KidKiller:** Arghh! You annoy so much!

**KaitouKid:** Oh, and when I say your secret is safe with me, I mean "safe with me, with the exception of telling that Kuroba Kaito kid that you like him".

_Oh my God. He's going to... everything's going to get screwed up if he tells him! Kaito doesn't like me back and I know it! It's just going to make everything awkward... I've got to make Kid understand that he can't do that! He probably won't listen, but I've got to try anyway..._

**KidKiller:** Please don't!

**KaitouKid:** Why not? This is your chance to reel him in! If you don't, someone else will.

_He has a point. I hate that. He shouldn't be making sense. But how did he know that Kaito is popular with the girls? It's almost like he's been spying on us, but that's crazy talk... he definitely has better things to do than stalk me. It's not like he goes on chat rooms dedicated to him..._

**KidKiller:** Just don't! It won't work out, trust me!

**KaitouKid:** What are you talking about? Of course it will! Unless – oh, Nakamori-san! You like another guy, don't you. Who is it? Tell me tell me tell me tellmetellmetellme

_This is just too perfect. He's practically giving me an opportunity to salvage my friendship with Kaito, and it's all the better because he has no idea he's doing it! Though, he does seem a bit off. It's almost as if he_ wants _me to like Kaito, and that he wants to be 100 percent sure that I do. Why would he want that?_

**KidKiller:** Yeah, there's this other guy that I like. I'm just friends with Kaito, and nothing more. That's it.

She could practically feel disappointment emitting from his next reply.

**KaitouKid:** Oh. Who is it?

_Crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. I don't know any other guys in my class, besides Hakuba, and Kid wouldn't believe a lie like that in a million years. The only other person is..._

**KidKiller:** It's actually you.

**KaitouKid:** That's sweet. But you do know that I'm a forty year old man, right?

**KidKiller:** Ha ha. I'm not going to believe that for a second. 40 year old men don't go on chat rooms when they're bored. You also live with your mom, but you're such a great magician that you would be able to get a good job and wouldn't have to live with her. Now try telling me that you're a 40 year old man.

_My argument is weak, but hopefully he'll admit. If he really is as old as he says he is, then he's a pedophile. If not, then there are a lot of questions that need to be asked._

**KaitouKid:** No comment.

_KaitouKid has disconnected._

She stared at the screen, blinked, and then came to her senses. She exited the window and stood from her chair. The thief was sort-of fun to talk to (if not a little aggravating) and was good company when she wasn't able to talk to Kaito. Besides, she hadn't completely lied earlier when she said she liked Kid. It just was that she didn't hate. Nothing more.

_Nothing more._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha this is some old writing. Probably my least favorite chapter of the oldies, but not gonna bother editing it for now. In the interim, just enjoy OOC Kid. Stay distant, my friends :)


	3. I Would Do Anything, But I Won't Do That

_I'm being stupid about this,_ Aoko thought as she signed back on to the website the next day. Her day at school hadn't been any better than the day before, and she was still mad at Kaito. Even thinking about that jerk brought her blood pressure up. It almost felt like she hated him as much as Kaitou Kid. Which was definitely a lot. Definitely.

There was yet another unread message waiting for her when the page loaded. Curious as to what the thief had to say to her – for it had to be from him, since she hadn't spoken to anyone else on the site – and a bit desperate for someone to talk to, she clicked the notification.

 **KaitouKid:** Sorry about that.

 **KidKiller:** What happened?

 **KaitouKid:** Lost connection.

Ha, like she was going to believe that. Still, she played along in order to appease him. It had occurred to her while she was at school that she could use all of these messages as evidence to use against him in order to find out what his identity was and to use against him in court. Her father would be upset with her, but the ends out-weighed the means, or whatever the saying was. In other words, she'd be a hero, and she'd be absolutely fine with that.

 **KidKiller:** So, what do you want to talk about.

 **KaitouKid:** What do _you_ want to talk about? I'm not really fond about talking about my personal life with other people, if you catch my drift.

_Wow... he practically tells me his age but he says he doesn't want to "talk about his personal life." Ha ha. He either just came to his senses, or is trying to be weird for some odd reason. I actually don't care which it is. That's surprising, though, considering that I'm trying to find out as much as I can about him..._

**KidKiller:** Okay. Well, today I threw my chair at Kaito.

 **KaitouKid:** Oh, that guy that you like? Are you two bickering or legit mad at each other?

_I never thought I'd hear – err, see – Kid say words like "bickering" and "legit". They seem either too old or too young for him to use. It's not really his style, so why is he using them? Is it proof that he's both elderly and a teenager? That would explain a lot, but it would raise a lot more questions. I don't want to think about this right now._

**KidKiller:** I'm not sure. He seemed pretty, I don't know... _disgruntled_ when he came to school today. Almost depressed, but I'm not sure. He wasn't that fun to be around because of that, and also because he was acting like a complete jerk to whoever tried to talk to him. I don't know what's wrong with him.

 **KaitouKid:** That's because I told him.

Aoko's heart stopped and the color faded from her face.

 **KidKiller:** _What_ did you tell him?

 **KaitouKid:** Only that you don't like him, and that you're head-over-heels in love with me. ;D

 **KidKiller:** YOU SON OF A ***! I TOLD YOU NOT TO TELL HIM!

Her life was officially ruined. Kaito was going to make fun of her for the rest of the year, and if they were in the same class in senior year, then during that year, too. It was going to be terrible! And it was all thanks to that despicable thing that didn't even deserve to be called a man. She was going to kill him!

 **KaitouKid:** Calm down, I'm just kidding! Can't you take a joke?

_Oh, thank God._

**KidKiller:** Why did you do that?

 **KaitouKid:** It was a perfect opportunity. Did you want me to just pass up the perfect chance to annoy you?

 **KidKiller:** Yes, actually, I did.

 **KaitouKid:** Hey, watch it. If you keep being rude to me, I'll have no choice but to drop a note to a certain person...

 _He wouldn't. Kid may be self-absorbed, arrogant, nerve-grating, and just a down-right jerk, but he's a man of his word. He promised that he wouldn't tell, and he wouldn't go back on his word, no matter how hard it is for me to accept. Well, at least, I_ think _he won't go back on his word. I really hope not._

 **KidKiller:** Please don't! I'll do anything!

 **KaitouKid:** Anything?

_Crap. Wrong plea._

**KidKiller:** Well, maybe not anything...

 **KaitouKid:** No going back on your promise. Hmm, what will I have you do for me?

_This is bad. He's going to make me an accomplice for his next heist or something! I'm going to be a criminal, and Dad's going to kill me! At this point, I might as well just tell Kaito the truth and get it over with. Oh man, he's going to laugh like crazy when I tell him..._

**KidKiller:** Please don't make me help you with your heist! I'd rather just tell Kaito myself!

 **KaitouKid:** What? No! I'm not going to force you to do that! You'd just get in the way! Anyway, I want to meet you in the park. You know, just chat for a bit, instead of using this stupid website. How about it?

_So he's definitely a pedophile. I'm not sure I want to meet him in person, but he has a record of being nonviolent, so I guess I can. I'll tell Dad that I'm meeting with Keiko there. I always do that, so he won't be suspicious. It's just that Kid's a freaking criminal, for God's sake. I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll play it by ear, I guess._

**KidKiller:** Fine. Just... don't do anything weird.

 **KaitouKid:** Wouldn't dream of it, really. Trust me, I'm not a rapist or a murderer. I don't prey on girls that have confided their secrets with me and that pretty much hate my guts. Remember what I said a couple days ago? You're an interesting person to talk to. Nothing less, and nothing more.

 **KidKiller:** That last part makes me feel a bit offended, and the first part is just kind of weird. But... Kaito says I need to "stop being so stiff and party some more", so I guess I'll do it. When should we meet?

_I can't believe I'm actually going to do this._

**KaitouKid:** I'll be there whenever. Now, I have to go. Bye.

_KaitouKid has disconnected._


	4. The Walking Chapter

It had been about two weeks since she last talked - err, wrote - to Kaitou Kid. Truth be told, rather than ignoring that creep on purpose, she had completely forgot about the website (and the Internet in general) due to Finals Week. She was even more scared for those tests than she was when her father had been admitted to the hospital after getting shot some how.

But finally, _finally_ , the Age of Tests (as she called it) was over. Summer was abounding everywhere, and everybody was not happy. Reason for the melancholy: the heat.

It was waaaaaaaaay too hot outside. Nobody left the house without bringing at least five large waterbottles, and the few brave ones that did leave soon found themselves seeking AC-ed shelter. Kid had to have known this - he lived in the area, how could he not know? - and was being nice by not scheduling any heists. Aoko understood him more than she cared - it had to be hot underneath that suit!

Staying inside, though, was almost as bad as going outside was. It was dreadfully boring. Every time she booted up her second-hand computer, it would always overheat after two minutes. This meant, of course, no speaking to Mr. Kid. Not that she cared.

Then there came, seemingly out of the blue, a sudden break from the weather. Not a single person in Ekoda had seen that one coming. Even the meteorologists were stumped. This isn't to say that the cool(er) weather was unwelcome, though. People were stepping out of the houses in wonder as if they hadn't seen the light of day in years, and the children raced to the community playground so as to get some long-needed and long-wanted exercise. The downfall, of course, was the annoying tweens that walked around the neighborhood acting like they ruled the place, but Aoko didn't even bother caring about them.

It was time.

Gathering her wallet, keys, and other miscellaneous items in her purse, she called up the stairs a quick "Good-bye" to her father and exited the house. She was going to make herself go to that park as fast as possible and make sure she stayed there. She was not going to let herself back out. She was not a chicken, and she most definitely was not going to let this once-in-a-lifetime chance pass her by. She had missed too much already, stuck in her stuffy room without even Kaito to talk to (but he didn't matter anyway because she was still mad at him).

Her stomach was being a jerk to her today. It kept turning over and made her feel like there was a black hole forming there. With each step she took it got worse, and her posture became slightly bent in attempt to soothe the forming pain. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea... perhaps she should go back home...

There was no way in Heaven, Earth, and Hell that she was going to turn back. Her father didn't raise her as a coward, and he certainly didn't raise her to run away from her problems. Ever since she went on that chatroom and spoke to Kid, he became _her_ problem, and that was set in stone. There was no getting around Fate, especially when it didn't want to be changed. She would simply have to find a way to deal with this hurdle, no matter how big she found it to be.

A thought occurred to her, and as more drops of sweat trickled down her face, the more appealing the idea became. She stopped her slow stroll - going any faster would have fatigued her more than she would have liked in that weather - and strayed to a nearby vendor. Three dollars were given to the man's itchily grabby hands, and a tall water bottle was given to her. The price had been overpriced, but that was the price she had to pay for being so stupid as to leave her own at home.

Now she had no excuse to stall. And stall she did not.

Between her and the park was the gate. It was a simple, pretty thing, but written over with graffiti to the point of making even looking at it an unpleasant ordeal. It possessed that quality that only public park gates could have. This, of course, was lost on Aoko as she entered the area with visible anxiety written all over her face.

The place was very old, and had distinguishing characteristics of that fact. Weeds were abundant; the benches were broken and tilted; the path was half there, half not; the flowers had grown into a state that overbore the examiner; the trees were ancient and stood like they were sequoias. Still, it was one of the most popular and most-visited places in the town.

Taking in a final gasp of air, she stared at one of the old, rusted steel-and-wood benches and slowly sat down. She brought her hands to the crown of her head and began trying to smooth her hair, which had become frizzy in the humid air (it wouldn't hurt to look presentable to Kaitou Kid, after all, even if he _was_ a criminal). Her hands stopped their movements, though, when a voice hissed out of the tree above her,

_"Good morning, Aoko."_


	5. Hello Clarice - I Mean Nakamori-san!

" _Good morning, Aoko._ "

She jumped from the bench and looked up at the tree. There was someone in there, no doubt. She couldn't make out who it was, but she had a pretty good idea that it was the one-and-only Kaitou Kid, since he was the reason she was at the park in the first place. She strained her eyes in an attempt to look at his face. In reply, he chuckled. "I'm not an idiot, Nakamori-san. This isn't my real face."

He leaped down next to her, not caring if anyone saw. For all they cared, he was just some random guy who had been climbing a tree. That was all. And since he knew nobody would give them the time of day, he deemed it okay to speak about things more revealing. "You didn't bring any cops? No Kaitou Kid taskforce? - nothing?"

"Um... uh. No." Her face turned red with embarrassment as she realized that she hadn't even done the most obvious thing. Kid had told her directly where he was going to be and when, and she didn't even tell the police. It would have been an easy catch. And somehow she had screwed things up by not telling anyone. She was about ready to smack her forehead when he said, "Oh, really? You're pretty trustworthy, Nakamori-san."

Kid thought she was trustworthy? She didn't tell her dad about any of this, and Kid was saying she was _trustworthy?_ She was the farthest thing from that! But if he thought she was dependable, then perhaps she could use that to her advantage. Maybe they would have another meeting, and then she would have enough sense to bring the fuzz along. They could get that son of a gun behind bars in no time, and she would be a hero. Not that being a hero was the most important part of that plan.

So she grinned. "Thanks."

"And don't bother bringing the cops along next time. I can dodge those guys in a second flat," he bragged. She finally got a good look at his face (before she was just staring at the ground for God knows what reason), and the first thing she noticed was his boring, brown eyes. Strange. She had always thought that he would have some type of magical, mystical eye color, like sparkling blue or regal purple. But his were just... dull. Normal. Brown.

Next, she saw his hair. It looked like everyone else's. Dark black. Straight. Normal.

She got the feeling that it was all fake. No way could such a character as Kaitou Kid have such normal attributes. He was probably wearing colored contacts and a wig. And obviously a mask. Like he said before, he was not stupid. Even though he said that she was "trustworthy" (and who knows why he thought that), he wasn't dumb enough to show her his true identity on their first meeting. Even during the heists, when he would pretend to be carefree and take risks, he was actually following calculated plans and using his brain. Evading the cops took work, not being lucky and careless all the time.

An obvious example of that would, of course, be his mask. It looked so real. He couldn't just walk right up to her in his civilian persona and say, "Hey Nakamori-san. I'm Kaitou Kid. Now you know what I look like so you can go tell your father everything about me and put me behind bars!". No. He definitely wasn't an idiot, and he definitely wasn't fooling around with his business. That mask took time to make and was designed for specifically this purpose.

He was staring at her. _Why is he doing that._ She suddenly recalled that he was the last person to speak, so going with the rules of conversation, she was the one who was supposed to say the next thing. Her cheeks reddened some more and she asked, finally, "So why did you have me come here?"

"Straight to the point. I like that, Nakamori-san," he answered playfully. He then turned serious. "It's dangerous using a website to talk about me being... well, me. A cop could go on and track my address, and in less than a day I'd be in jail. I know you don't really care for me, but I'd rather stay out in the world. You know, be free."

"But why are you talking to me when it's so 'dangerous'? Why risk being put in jail to talk to some random stranger like me?"

He sighed and started leaving the bench. He motioned for her to come with him. "Walk with me."

* * *

"See here, Nakamori-san, I like talking to you because you're _interesting,_ " Kid remarked casually as they strolled through the park. Aoko kept making herself remember that they were definitely _not a couple_ , and they were only strolling through the beautiful garden because they had decided to meet each other after chatting on an online site. And most definitely, she was not in love with that damned Kaitou Kid. He was a criminal, and she was an inspector's daughter. Even if they did harbor romantic attachments for each other - which was rather unlikely, in Aoko's opinion - their relationship could never last. She was not a character in some dramatic movie or television show. These things just didn't happen.

Still, she found herself picturing herself and Kid holding hands as they ran through some hallway in one of his heist locations. That mental image quickly disappeared as she reminded herself that she didn't have the ability or agility to do anything close to what he did on a regular basis. Not only that, but it was illegal. _It's illegal, you dope! How can I like Kid - I mean, err, how could I ever umm think about liking Kid - when I know that he's a freaking criminal who humiliates my father day in and day out just for the fun of it? Think, Aoko! Kaito was right when he said I was stupid. I don't know a thing. I don't even have common sense. What am I even doing here? I should be calling the cops! And what if Kid had turned out to be some serial rapist or killer or something? Dad would have thought I was with Keiko, and I didn't even say a word about this to Kaito. Nobody would have even known where I was, and they wouldn't have any idea who I was with. Aoko, you've gotta start using your brain one of these days!_ _You're gonna get killed if you keep acting like this!_

Her inner monologue was brought to an end as Kid spoke once again. "Hey, I said that you're interesting. You're fun to be around. And you're not even saying a word to me. What's up?"

" _YOU'RE A CRIMINAL, THAT'S WHAT'S UP!_ " she screamed. Numerous people around them turned to look at them, and Aoko could hear Kid mutter under his breath, "Crap."

Obviously he wasn't expecting that. Before any passerby could respond, he threw down a smoke bomb. Aoko, who was nearest to him, starting coughing and spluttering as she accidentally breathed in the fog. In the midst of her confusion, she felt a hand slip into her pocket, and her hand instantly flew to the spot. Her reflexes weren't fast enough and she missed his arm. When the smoke cleared, she was left gasping for air with no Kaitou Kid in sight. Through her Nakamori genes, she mustered up a few quick colorful words between breaths as she surveyed the crowd, trying to see which people weren't there before. It was hard to tell, since more people had run over when the bomb had been thrown, but she eyed a couple that looked especially suspicious. A thought came to her and irked her as she realized that any one of these people could be him in his true identity, and she wouldn't even have the slightest clue.

One woman ran over, her two tiny children trailing behind her. Aoko, with her hands on her knees, was grateful for the helping hand and allowed herself to be led over to a splintery wooden bench. The dozens of questioning gazes followed her there, and she was left with an overwhelming feeling of loathing for the thief. He had left in such a revealing way that there was no way she was going to be able to cover it up. Her father would inevitable find out, because one of those fools would probably leak the story to the press, and she would be grounded for life. After much silence, somebody dared to ask the question that everyone was thinking. "Was that the Kaitou Kid?"

She had lied so much already. To her father, to her friends, and even to Kid himself. The weight of all the untruths she had told fell down on her and buried her. There were so many white lies, so many big lies. There were too many to count. And under all of them, she thought to herself, _Would one more lie really matter?_

Staring at the man, eye to eye, she answered him, "No."


	6. When Aoko-chan Met KID-kun

It was a week later when she finally went back on the chat site. Not surprisingly, there were no unread messages. Kaitou Kid wasn't going to waste his time talking to some idiot girl who almost ratted him out (although she did manage, somehow, to keep that incident from the press). With nothing left for her on that chat room, she exited the window and flopped over onto her bed. She covered her face with her pillow and murmured dejectedly, "Ahoko, you are the biggest baka in the world."

"I don't think you are."

She sprang to her feet. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

"Oh, you know," Kid grinned like the cat that ate the canary. "Just saying hi."

"My dad could walk in here any minute!"

"But he's at the bar," he reminded her. Strange how it almost seemed like he knew that before she did. "Did you really think you could trick me?"

_How did he...? He's not following me, right?_

"Why are you here?" she folded her arms across her chest, staring everywhere except at him. It was really strange and just downright weird seeing him in her room, especially seeing as he was currently dressed in his infamous white tuxedo. The attention-seeking, over-confident, egotistical little _brat_ of a thief, just prancing around in the house of his arch nemesis. The absolute nerve of that guy. "If you wanted to talk there was always the site... not to mention that I kind of assumed you wouldn't want to talk to me..."

"Psh. That site's for wimps," he chortled before continuing in a still offhanded manner. "And besides, talking in person is so much better."

Aoko huffed. "Only for you..."

"What're you trying to say? You can't be telling me that you don't find this fun at all!"

She glared at him murderously. He took a step back, holding up his hands defensively. With Aoko it was easy to tell when to start tip toeing around on the eggshells. He nervously replied. "What I meant, Nakamori-san, was that this is a great opportunity for us to talk to each other and -"

"WHY WOULD I EVER WANT TO TALK TO YOU?"

"Well, you were the one who signed up for that site. Not to mention," he pulled something out of his pocket and fiddled with it a bit as he spoke, "you did go to the park without police back up. If you hated me you would've made sure I got thrown in jail. And you might be interested to know that I have this."

She stared at the item. Her face paled considerably. "That's my phone."

"Yes, and it was very entertaining to go through. Your poems do need a bit more work."

"THOSE WERE PERSONAL!"

"Well, of course they were. They can just be our little secret, then." He winked and laughed before growing increasingly serious. "There were also, obviously, _other_ items on your phone that I would rather like to discuss with you, though. Tell me, Nakamori-san, _for how long have you been communicating with Wakahisa Yuuto?_ "

Yuuto-kun. He was one of the people she had met on the site during the times when she had been waiting for Kid to reply. Yuuto-kun had been exceptionally friendly to her, and had shared her opinion on Kid. Though lingering thoughts about him being a pedophile were always very much present in her mind, she was certain nobody could be worse than Kid himself. Also, she was sure she was fine, just as long as she never went out to meet the guy in public or gave him any of her personal information. He knew her only as "Aoko," and she knew him only as "Yuuto." Hearing his last name from Kid – because that was what it was, wasn't it? - gave her chills and she became instantly nervous about the whole situation. Her reply was stammered out. "A-about two weeks. We met on the site. What's so bad about that?"

Kid sighed and shoved the phone back in his pocket. "A lot of things, actually. I checked the guy out. Before you ask"- her mouth shut itself -"no, he's not what you're thinking. He's actually _much worse_." He gave her a strange look. "It's funny. Even I would never have guessed that one could meet a criminal other than me on that site."

"What do you mean," she desperately demanded.

"It's not really any of your business, that's all I'm saying." He collapsed onto her bed with all the regal-ness of a king and spread his hands wide open. He showed her his palms before tightly folding them into fists and pounding them together. Opening them again, her phone appeared in the center of his right hand. He offered it to her. "Take it. It's yours, remember?"

She snatched it quickly, unimpressed with his attempt to change topics. "But doesn't that guy need to get sent to jail? I'd be a great witness for that. So how could he be none of my business?"

"Nakamori-san, Nakamori-san... you don't get it. He's not _your_ business; he's _my_ business. Leave it all to me. _I've actually been looking for this guy for a while, now_." He grinned at her contentedly. "So don't worry anymore, okay?"

She looked at him. Looked at him straight in the eyes.

And couldn't figure out a damn thing.

But that was Kid, right there, right there in front of her. He had his crap together, and if what he was saying was true – then, sure. She could work with that. Less worrying for her. She crossed her arms. "So if that was all you wanted to talk about...?"

"Ah, no. One more thing," he raised his index figure in unison with the sentence. Universal symbol for _one_ , that one was easy enough to get. It was a completely unnecessary action, anyway, but still, this was Kid and she knew that he had always been one for theatrics. He went on as he stood up. "Just one question."

The air pressure in the room went up about fifty units of whatever the hell they use to measure that crap in. She didn't really give a damn about that. All she cared about was that her throat suddenly felt _very dry_ and it felt kind of hard to breathe. Maybe it something to do with this random foreboding feeling she had. Or the fact that Kaitou Kid was suddenly standing very tall-ly and was only about three feet away from her. She stared at him and tried not to go red in the face.

"Shoot."

He took a step closer. "I was just curious, that's all. Since I know you hated me before we started talking. I just wanted to know... if all this changed your mind at all."

Stupid. Conniving. Manipulative. Bastard.

But... but if she was really going to be honest – like he wanted her to be – not only to him, but to herself... how _did_ she think of him? Sure, he was an arrogant asshole who drove her and her father insane every moment of the day, but there were other things about him that she had learned by just talking to him. Namely, that he was person.

Kaitou Kid had a life. He was a person. He had a background and he was just as human as she was. She knew now that he still lived with his mother for whatever reason, that he had a fairly decent sense of humor, and that he was capable of slipping up and making mistakes. He was a person. And not just that. He was a person that – dare she say it? - she actually got along with rather well.

How could she say that, though? To admit to a friendship with the Kaitou Kid would be treason against the Nakamori household and the law itself! And if her father ever found out... if he ever even _knew_ that she was talking to the damn guy, he'd have her head.

But Kid was Kid, and for some reason she felt safe in telling the real, actual truth. Her eyes were looking at his, hers cold blue and his dark violet. She made her statement short. "You're... okay. I guess."

"That's good. _I guess_." His intentional copying of her words was not lost on her. He held out his hand to her. "So does that make us friends, Nakamori-san?"

She stared at the outstretched gesture for a moment. Even though her words had already been uttered, _this_ was a case in and of itself. To shake hands or not to shake hands, that was the question. She narrowed her eyes slightly and tightened her lips, grimacing almost as she took his hand and allowed for a firm handshake to occur. She tried her best not to think about the cold silk gloves he had on.

And it was over quick enough, much to Aoko's relief. They locked eyes for another quick moment, and Kid nodded to her. It was sort of awkward. She realized that he had just as little idea of what to do next as she did. But... but all the same, he had told her not to worry anymore. So she'd just leave it all up to him to decide what to do next. He was the better one at that sort of improvisation, anyway.

"Well, Nakamori-san, I've got to get going. Got a heist to plan for and everything." He winked at her. "You know the works."

He strolled over to the window and pushed it outwards. Obviously he was going to leave by that way. She felt the sudden urge to be a good hostess and see him out. She followed him to the window, a couple seconds late. He perched himself up on the sill and placed himself to look at her. "Goodbye, Nakamori-san."

"It's Aoko," and she didn't really know why she said that.

"How about Aoko-chan, hm? We're not _that_ good of friends, anyway. Just acquaintances who aren't about to let each other get in trouble. We're looking out for each other, you and me." He gave her the first sincere grin she'd seen in a while.

"Okay," was her dumb reply. Her mind clicked together slowly and she finally asked a question she had had simmering on the back burner of her mind for a little whiles now. "What do you want me to call you? And don't say 'Kaitou Kid-sama' because that's not going to happen."

Awkward questions for awkward times. He answered anyway. "Kid, or whatever. I don't care much for formalities. I'd give you my real name, but I'm sure that you understand that I'm not comfortable with revealing information like that."

"Kid-kun. It's only fair."

His expression to that was priceless. _"Kid-kun?_ I don't think I've ever been called _that_ before. You're truly unique, Naka – Aoko-chan. _"_

"Thanks. I try my best." Sarcasm was fun. "Now. Don't you need to be somewhere?"

"Oh yeah." He checked his watch and raised his eyebrows to a phenomenal height. "Damn. Sorry I can't stay any longer, Aoko-chan. But I'll see you as soon as I can, okay?"

Another wink. She had lost count before he even started. "Fine. Bye."

She blinked and he was gone.


	7. Blood Mattress, But I Love It

And it had been a relatively boring day at school. Kaito had been Kaito, so that meant that he'd flipped her skirt again but she hadn't even bothered to chase him around for that because she was still so pissed at him. For a good reason, too, anyway. _Honestly_ , her inner voice complained. _He didn't even say sorry. And he expects me to forgive him for doing something like_ _that_ _... the nerve of that guy. And he keeps doing it, even when he_ _knows_ _how mad I get about it._

Sometimes she wondered what it'd be like to have a normal best friend. But then again, maybe he wasn't the weird one. Maybe _she_ was. After all, it was only yesterday that she had freaking consented to have a truce with one of the most infamous criminals on the planet! And besides Kaito, and Kid, there was also Hakuba who was British with a capital B, Akako who cackled like a witch, and Keiko who was naïve and kind of dumb at times.

But that was all forgotten. Today was Friday, and Friday was a Great Day because it meant that she could relax and just forget about all her homework until Sunday night. Aoko trudged tiredly up the stairs to her room, dragging her back pack behind her. Maybe she'd get the dumb homework done tonight, just so that she wouldn't have to worry about it later. Yeah. That was it. She didn't want to worry about it later. It didn't have anything to do with the fact that here was going to be a Kid heist on Sunday.

Aoko and Kid were friends. In her mind, it was still hard to comprehend. But even though they _were_ friends, that didn't mean that she couldn't want him to still go to jail, right?

She threw herself onto her bed and let the mattress sink with all her weight. It wasn't one of those Sleepy's mattresses with the memory foam – nope, it was just one of the old ones with some stain she just _knew_ was blood from the previous owner – but it was comfortable all the same. And most of all it was hers. She liked it mostly because of that.

Her dad wasn't home, but that was a fact that had come to be expected ever since Kid had reappeared. A lot of the time he was busy at work doing paper work, or catching up on the latest clues that would in time lead to the capture of the elusive man. She sat up on her mattress and leaned against the walls. Her legs and toes curled. It was funny how it felt like her dad was dead sometimes on those nights when he just didn't come home until four in the morning. She snorted at the absurdity of the media who said that Kaitou Kid didn't ever kill.

Tap tap at her window. Growing up next to the Kurobas, growing up with Kaito as a friend, it didn't really alarm her as much as it should have. She swung her eyes towards the window. And then she spoke. "Why."

Kaitou Kid, high and mighty, shoved the window open and jumped down gracefully from where he was perched. A calculated movement, without a doubt. He gave her that famous smile of his and bowed. "Why am I here? Ah, Naka – Aoko-chan, that is surely no way to greet your guests, now is it?"

"That wasn't my question," and she stared right back at him. She had a feeling that he could see the dark circles that had formed under her eyes. The sleepless last night she had had was still fresh on her mind. "I meant, why do you do this? What's the point?"

He tsked and sat down on her bed next to her. She glared at him. It felt like he was... it felt like he was trespassing. He wasn't supposed to be sitting on _her_ bed. It was... hers. Hers. She almost didn't catch his response, but she was a good listener – it was in her genes, and it was from her father – so she would have heard it even if she wasn't listening. "It's all about... a story. If that clears it up any." He winked at her. She had the urge to sock him in the gut. "But that still wasn't a very good hello."

"I'm sorry," her sarcasm was astounding, "I wasn't aware that it meant so much to you."

"Quite the contrary. Salutations mean very little to me. It's the goodbye's that count."

To her, all of the sudden he looked sort of wistful. It made her wonder why. But it didn't take much to remind her of her own past. She looked down at her hands and spoke quietly as she opened up a bit more to him than she would have liked. "I know. Because sometimes we don't always get a chance to say them, right? I get it, I get it..."

She caught him sigh. "Yeah."

That look on his face suddenly seemed very eerily similar to... to the one that was always on Kaito's face whenever he thought about his father. The face of a grieving son. The face of someone who hasn't yet had the chance to say farewell. The face of someone who still doesn't have _closure_.

Closure. But certainly Kaito had that? His father was dead – blown to itty bitty pieces before his very eyes – so he definitely knew he was dead. Closure shouldn't have been the right word. Closure was the word for closure. She had closure about her mother's death. Kaito... how come Kaito didn't have closure?

It occurred to her, as she trained her eye on the white-silk knee of the thief sitting on her bed, that maybe there was a reason for that. Kuroba Toichi was a great magician. He never messed up. Ever. So why did he on that day? Was it just bad luck, or something else? Her eyes went wide, and again she was seeing the flying bits of the great Kuroba Toichi.

"Aoko-chan, we have a lot in common, don't we?" It sounded like a rhetoric question but she didn't feel like treating it as such. Thinking clearly while having the possible murder of Kuroba-ojisan felt like an _im_ possible request. She lifted her eyes towards him and spoke in an almost whisper. "So what if we do? We're all people, aren't we?"

Quiet for a while. It felt like Kid would have had something to say to that, but she supposed he just didn't. She decided to change the topic after a few long moments. "So why _are_ you here, anyway?"

He turned to her and blinked. "We're friends. How else were we supposed to talk to each other?"

"Pshh. Fine. But next time don't come to my room without any warning. What if my dad was in here?" She pointedly ignored the part where he said that they were friends. She just _did not_ want to think about it anymore. If she didn't think about it, then she could be okay with it. Not thinking about something makes it easier to go against the beliefs you were brought up to uphold. Or something like that. She added, "And don't you have anything better to do, really?"

A grin. "No, not really. And honestly, Aoko-chan, you should know me better than that. You know that I always check before entering. Don't want your dad in here or you changing or anything. I'm not suicidal."

"Like hell you aren't," she muttered under her breath. He suddenly checked his watch. " _What?_ It's already five?" He sprung up. "Sorry, Aoko-chan, I've got to get going. Dinner's on the table and another woman I know would have my head if I showed up late." Jumped on the window sill. He looked just about ready to go. She noticed that he automatically scanned the room for anything he might have left there. A peculiar action for someone who hadn't brought anything with him. "Oh, and how would you have me contact you next time, and when?"

She squared her shoulders and stood up from the bed. "How about you just call me, or text me? That way I don't need to deal with you stopping by at random times." There was an unsaid _I don't mind talking to you, I just don't want_ _you_ _here._

"Good with me," he slightly-sighed, and for some reason he sounded a bit disappointed. But Aoko didn't care. He was a criminal and she wasn't going to baby him. He finished. "Now, until I see you again, Aoko-chan?"

"Bye," and that's all she said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Uhhhh so I was thinking about just skipping over the Sunday heist and being all like "things went down like normal" and just going right to Monday but no that didn't happen. Aoko's NOT going to attend the heist, because come on she's got homework to do on a Sunday night! But there is going to be some more Kaitou Kid and Aoko interaction, and then the chapter after that is going to be some Kaito and Aoko interaction. Because you know what this is my story and I'm allowed to freaking include what I want to include. Kaito as himself hasn't done a single dang thing in this story besides being mentioned. HE IS GOING TO HAVE A ROLEEEE
> 
> But that's wayyy later. Like, two chapters away. Next chapter is Sunday. Chapter after that is Monday. Hope that makes sense!


	8. Thinking Smarterly

Sunday rolled in and before she knew it, Aoko was bidding her father goodbye as he left for work. She, of course, was italicized _not going_ , due to numerous reasons: one, it would be a complete violation of her friendship with Kid since it would most assuredly end with _her_ chasing after _him_ and trying to put _him_ in jail; two, her father just plain didn't want her getting in the way; and three, she had homework. Sure, she _said_ that she was going to do it on Friday, but she got just a little itsy bitsy bit distracted by Kid, so then that didn't happen.

She was a good two hours into her calculus homework when her phone buzzed. It startled her out of the equation and she picked the device up. She wondered briefly, "Keiko...?"

But then, of course, she saw the sender's name and absolutely everything went to hell.

 _Kid_.

The message he sent was simple and short and sweet and completely to the point. Obviously it offered no explanation for basically anything, but then again that was just how Kid rolled. In the end, she just decided to ignore the fact that she had never even given the guy her number. He was Kid, dammit, and she knew he could figure things out like that easily. A reasonable theory that he just looked her number up when he was in possession of her phone prodded at her thoughts, but she ignored that one too.

The message read only: _Why aren't you watching TV?_

She stared at the message. She stared at her homework. She stared back at the message.

The sound her old textbook made when she closed it sharply was (almost) like music to her ears, though she didn't know why. She placed it on the shelf in its rightful position and packed her bag up so that she wouldn't forget anything for school the next day. And then she went downstairs. Curled up into a ball on the couch with some blanket thrown on top of her. Clicked on the TV.

Kid's heist was everywhere. Every. Channel.

She texted him back. _I am now. What did you want me to see?_

His response came sooner than expected. She knew without a doubt that this was a conversation now, not just some chat. _Just watch. You'll see me, and we'll be talking. It'll be the same thing as us talking, except I won't be in your bedroom this time ;)_

UHHHHH

She stared at that message. Stared a bit more. The creepy vibe coming from the last sentence was pretty strong. She had half a mind just to close her phone and stop talking to the idiot when she remembered that, hey they were friends and maybe this is just how Kid talks to his friends. She stared at the TV, pointedly, and just tried to get her mind off it. And then a really really loud bang came and she was startled to attention.

The news camera had focused in on Kid's face, which was part of his white suited body that was standing on top of the pedestal, which also happened to be the center of attention. She hated her television for not having enough pixels to tell her who the hell the guy was. Then again, did it really matter? Now that they were friends, after all. She shook that thought off. She shook every thought off. And just stared and watched.

" _ **Ladies and Gentlemen~!**_ " Kid's voiced echoed around her even though it was only coming from the speakers. _"_ _ **And the dear Nakamori-keibu, of course.**_ _"_

He bowed to the crowd and the cameras retreated to normal view. Aoko gripped her phone and texted fiercely. _Don't make fun of my dad, asshole!_

She didn't really think about it.

Maybe a moment passed and a faint buzz was somehow heard amongst the cheers of the masses. Kid looked towards the cameras and chuckled before pulling out his phone. Aoko saw her father stopping in his tracks to catch the guy, wearing the same expression of complete disbelief that she was sure was outstretched on her own face as well. Kid was freaking _texting_ in the middle of the heist?!

 _Sorry Aoko-chan! Have to do it, I'll explain later. Enjoy the fireworks!_ She frowned at his response moments later before returning attention back to the screen. Fireworks were going off and well obviously sirens were blaring in the background. People usually tuned them out though since they were present at every heist, and tended to (somehow) be easy to forget about. Not that they weren't obnoxious, of course – just that they were very easily forgotten when necessary.

But something bothered her... Aoko stared hard at the fireworks. Kid had purposely mentioned them in his text, and had actually bothered to tell her to "enjoy the fireworks" instead of "enjoy the show" or nothing at all. Something about it just – just didn't sit right with her. She stared at the fireworks and tried to figure it out.

Well, for one, they were all blue. Other than that she was confused. She watched as they exploded into the night. She murmured slowly as she watched, "What am I looking for..."

Then, all of a sudden, it clicked. She attributed it to her brain recognizing it was Kid and therefore thinking smarterly. She started speaking along with the explosions.

"dit dah / dah dah dah / dah dit dah / dah dah dah"

She watched on his Kid escaped safe and sound. Of course he had some big flashy exit but she was pretty sure she could live the rest of her life without ever needing to know what it was. Good thing, too, because she didn't pay attention. Her mind was focused on figuring out Kid's stupid code, because that's obviously what it was. Right?

Kid's response surprised her. She was kind of getting tired of surprises, but not his surprises. No no no she was definitely getting tired of him and his surprises. She was not getting used to them she was not liking them and she was definitely not enjoying them. Or him. She definitely hated/slightly disliked him. Because he was an asshole, who also happened to be her friend. She was allowed to be friends with assholes. She reminded herself that she was also friends with Kaito, which therefore proved her point. Ughsldkhls she was getting confused. She read the text quickly. _I hope you liked the fireworks, Aoko-chan! Now do your homework, lol_

She closed her eyes for a moment. Then they popped open.

_Wait, those fireworks...!_

She sank into the couch, blushing fiercely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I did use the word smarterly. Yes I do know that smarterly is not a word. I have been listening to too many Wicked songs therefore I have gotten used to made up words. Like, like "thrillifying," "Galinda-fied," and "braverism." My personal favorite is "swankified."
> 
> Um, yeah. About these updates. They seem rather, er, regular, dontcha think? You know black is this year's pink! Okay sorry I'll quit it with the Wicked references. But yeah next chapter is Monday morning and mayyyyyybe something'll happen wink wink. And oh the code in this chapter is extremely easy seriously it takes like two seconds of thinking. It's nothing big. Yeah.
> 
> Okay bye for the next couple years lol


	9. Monday Morning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right off the bat, I hate mistakes. My mistakes. Last chapter I wrote "next chapter is Monday morning" which could be interpreted as "hey guys I'm gonna put the next chapter up on Monday morning" instead of "hey guys the next chapter takes place during Monday morning." I didn't feel like editing the author note of the last chapter so I just wrote the next chapter. Because somehow I convinced myself that was a good idea? .
> 
> Well I'm typing this before I've even written the chapter so let's see how this goes! Yup okay:

"..."

"Aoko, come on! It's been a month! Talk to me already!" Kaito was waving his hand in front of Aoko's face, desperate for her attention. Because he was _supposed to be the center of her freaking attention, and if she didn't forgive him right this instant he was seriously going to -_

"Baka! Why the hell would I forgive you!" She turned to stare at him. "Especially after that jerk excuse for a prank! Why would you even think that was funny?"

"I dunno! It seemed like a good idea at the time!" She almost missed the sigh of relief that he gave right before talking. Keyword = almost. She narrowed her eyes at him, frowning more than she already was. Tried taking a good look at his soul, as a whole, that kind of thing. Tried to see if he was genuinely sorry about what he did. But it was worthless, wasn't it? Kaito was never sorry about anything he did. Maybe he regretted the consequences, but he never regretted the action. He was like that. She persisted, even still, "You stole all my clothes in the middle of class!"

"I'm sorry!"

"I had to sit here naked!" She shook her hands wildly in front of his face to emphasize how pissed the accident had made her. He still was unfazed, only trying to fix their relationship as friends and not seeing the bigger picture. Sighing, she realized that he was always going to be like this. He always _was_ like this. This was him. Focusing on the present, regretting the future, but trying to fix the past at the same time. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. All of a sudden she was tired with it all. "Fine. _Fine_. You win. I forgive you. Baka."

He gave her a small punch on her arm. "Hey, Aoko! Finally! I knew you'd come around. That's what friends are for, am I right?"

She chuckled, hints of vague remaining anger present in each breath, and took a swing at him ten times harder than he gave her. And it damn well served him right, she told herself as she turned back to the test on her desk. Kaito stared for a couple seconds before following suit.

In the front of the classroom, the teacher sighed with relief. Why couldn't every test day be as simple as this one?

* * *

Ring ring ring okay there's the bell announcing the end of the school day. Aoko picked up her bag and started out of the room the moment it sounded. Kaito, on the other hand, hastily gathered his supplies and attempted to follow her as quickly as he could. Aoko didn't care that he was trying to catch up. _Let him_ , she told herself. _Let him try and catch up by doing nothing but what he does every day! I'm not gonna wait for him anymore... he's gotta grow up and learn to take some responsibility some day! It's like I'm doing him a favor. Yeah. Let's go with that._

He caught up to her at the end of the school driveway. Somehow he managed to hustle her over to the side, away from the stampeding mass of exiting students. She was fairly (that is, 100%) sure that he caught her annoyed expression of "what do you want now?" printed clearly across her face. She was good with facial expressions, Chikage-obaasan had told her. Something about facial feature layout or whatever. Doesn't matter. "What do you want now, Kaito?"

"Look, can we talk somewhere private? Please," his eyes pleaded to her. Puppy dog eyes were pleading to her and nobody could resist.

She looked in his eyes and saw herself naked, embarrassed, and in front of the entire class. So the answer was obvious. "No. Just say it right here, and fast because I've got to get home to make dinner to bring to Tousan."

"Alright alright," he began. He looked at the ground. Then at the school. Then at the tree then at the fence then everywhere and then _finally_ at her. His mind looked made up. "Aoko, do you want to go out with me?"

They were easy words but sometimes easy words aren't really the easiest to say, or the easiest to comprehend. Or even the easiest to answer. There were two easy words that could be opposite answers but the hard part was always choosing which one to say. Aoko knew – she freaking knew – that there should have been really no decision to be made here and that of course she should say yes, since this is what she's wanted her whole life. And, to be honest, she was about to answer when

THAT

She looked in his eyes and saw THAT. An evil glint, or just something bad. She didn't want any part of that. She had no idea where it came from, _she wasn't even sure if Kaito knew it was there_ , but it scared her and it made her uncomfortable. THAT seemed to emit doubt, and she vainly wondered if she had discovered the source of doubt. But since that was crazy and stupid and somehow true she kept on thinking. Doubt doubt doubt and she knew that Kaito was always lying about _something_ but she never knew what it was.

It opened the door to the thought that maybe Kaito was kidding. Maybe it was a joke.

Maybe – no, _of course_ – he was an asshole.

"No, baka, and that was stupid to even ask."

For some reason that felt like the wrong answer to have said, even as she walked away. It felt like she had just brutally murdered his heart with a rusty chainsaw and hadn't even had a reason to. But of course she had a reason, she reminded. _He was joking. Nothing ever turns out the right way for me. Everything's always – distorted. I have a friend who's an international criminal, a friend who can't stop lying, a friend who cackles like a witch, a friend who can't stop ranting about time, and a friend who's too childish for her own good. And I'm a jerk for saying all these things about my friends. Maybe_ I'm _warped._

But she was warped and fine with it, because that's how her life was rolling along and that's how she kept her life rolling along. Somewhere in the pit of her self, maybe she wasn't okay with it (that was the part of her that wondered what she would be like if she weren't so warped) but everything was okay if that part was ignored. Because. Obviously things go great if you ignore things that are spitting out opinions different from yours.

Why didn't it stop her from going home and crying like hell? Well that isn't important. If it meant anything then her whole sense of the world was off. And that wasn't something she _wanted_ to be thinking about.

She just wanted to cry.

(but she knew why)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys and this is after the story was written! Yayyyy such sad such sad. I don't care if you can follow what Aoko's thinking or not but basically it's just her trying to make sense of the world and she's lying to herself and blah blah. She's trying to convince herself that Kaito was lying to her about that because she doesn't wanna get hurt blah blah. Yeahhhhh I dunno guys.


	10. All You Had to Do Was Say Please

It was suddenly night again. A silky, dewy atmosphere stretched across the city and wrapped Aoko in its humid embrace as she sat, tapping away again at her old computer. A homework assignment that was almost past-due - only two hours left until midnight! - inched along in completion, fighting Aoko's best efforts to just be done with it. Outside her open window, tired raindrops began to tap timidly against her rusted screen. A nice breeze blew through her room and wrapped her tightly for just a moment. The tapping at her window began to grow more fervent.

Aoko broke her concentration on her homework to stare at her window, where Kaitou Kid in full costume was perched again. It felt like years since she had seen him, even though his heist was just the day before. She suddenly felt much less alone than earlier that day, when Kaito had been tearing her emotions apart. She swallowed and said, "You shouldn't be here."

"You never want me here," he retorted easily.

"I didn't say that," she said, approaching the window and unhooking the screen. "Thank you for the fireworks, Kid-kun."

Kid hopped into her room and stood, almost majestically, in her midst. Holding the screen against her, she gazed up at him in wonder. He was so strong and so charming, and she felt so boring in comparison. What did he want with her? He was interesting. He didn't even have a name. What could she do to put herself at his level?

He broke through her musings by saying, "Anything for you, Aoko-chan."

She placed the screen down carefully, and turned back around to find Kid's face a lot closer than it was before. Or was she just imaging it? She definitely was. She looked into his eyes. Something broken, deep far down, seemed to be healing. She felt a shiver creep up her spine. From her lower back to her shoulders to her cheeks - leaning forward, she grabbed onto Kid's head and kissed him suddenly.

She felt a rush of redness swarm into her cheeks and she closed her eyes instinctively as she expected Kid to pull back and disappear. After what felt like forever, a pair of cold gloved hands wrapped themselves around her torso and tugged her closer. She became acutely aware that she was engaged in an act of intimacy with a person that half the world's population would kill to be with - and that her father would kill to be without. She opened her eyes and looked into Kid's eyes, a little further this time. The healing and the brokenness were one and the same.

Aoko broke away and sat on her bed, sinking into its covers and becoming enveloped in its springs. She looked down at the pleats in her skirt and began smoothing them out as she asked, "What does this mean?"

She waited a minute for an answer, but when none came for a while, she looked up. Kid was standing in the middle of the room with a dumbstruck face, looking very far away. She walked back over to him and stared at him straight on. Face to face with the devil she grew up with. "Kid?"

"...Aoko?"

"We need to talk about this," she pulled him over to her bed and sat him down with her. "What are we doing?"

"We're friends," Kid said simply.

"That's not helpful," Aoko said.

He looked at her strangely. "So you're saying we aren't friends?"

"Actually -" she paused a second. "- I don't know. Are we? I don't even know who you are. And you won't ever tell me. And I know that. And I think that's okay. But -" another pause "- does that really matter? In the end?"

"It does," Kid said slowly, getting up. "I shouldn't be here."

Aoko tugged him back down. "No, listen to me. You are you, and I am me. I might not know who you are, but I know more about you than anyone else in the world. I think that's got to count for something."

Kid kicked back on Aoko's bed. He seemed to be rolling her words around in his head, thinking about them with his illogical logic in that weird way of his. Finally, like a kitchen timer dinging, he suddenly looked at Aoko. "So let me get this straight. You like me -" Aoko blushed a deep purple-scarlet before he continued on "- and I like you. Is that right?"

Aoko stared at Kid laying on her bed, looking comfortable and strangely not out of place. She also thought about Kaito, at school, and how angry he made her that day, and how he could never seem to be serious. And, for some reason, her mind went to Hakuba, who was weird and nerdy and not somebody that she was interested in ever having a relationship with but was somehow, against all odds, interested in her for who she was. Hakuba taught her the definition of love.

"Yes," she settled on.

"What are we going to do?" he asked worriedly. "This is complicated. Your dad -"

"My dad doesn't need to know. You're a master at secrets. This'll just be another one. So what do you say?"

Kid sat up and finally smiled at Aoko. He ruffled her hair a bit and playfully asked, "What are you saying?"

She swatted his hand, giggling out, "Please, for the love of God - will you go out with me?"

Kid pulled her into a quick kiss before leaping off her bed and jumping back onto the windowsill. "All you had to do was say please. I'll see you at ten on Friday, at Tropical Land. How's that? A real date."

"I'll be there." She followed him to the windowsill and smiled at him. "Goodnight, Kid."

"Goodnight, Aoko. Friday at ten. Don't forget."

"I won't," she replied. Her ears picked up the sound of her father's footsteps coming up the stairs - and presumably to her room. "Now, go - my dad's coming."

He jumped off his perch and flew off into the humid, summer night, disappearing just in time for Aoko's dad to open the door and peek his head in. "Hey, Aoko."

"Hi, Tou-san." Aoko busied herself with looking normal. Her father stared at her strangely. "Why is your screen out of your window?"

Aoko looked at the screen, lying on the floor next to her. "A bird flew into it and wanted to come in."

"Where is it now, then?" her father asked, in confusion.

"It flew away."

He nodded his head, the way fathers do. He stood in silence for a bit before saying, "Alright then. Goodnight, Aoko."

"Goodnight, Tou-san. Have a good day at work tomorrow."

Once her father had left, Aoko returned to her homework, and once again started tapping away at the assignment. Inch by inch, the words grew longer. Life returned to normal. But Aoko knew, as she crawled into bed after submitting the homework two minutes past the deadline, her life with Kid in it was going to be anything but normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following note was written for when this story was originally posted on fanfiction.net:
> 
> It's been five years since I last updated this story. It's been seven years since I started this story. I might not ever finish it. But I based this chapter's theme around the whole reason I wrote this - all you had to do was say please.I have received email notifications fairly consistently since I put this fic out regarding people favoriting and following this story. People love this story for some reason, even though I began it as an angsty middle schooler. It touches my heart, really. I was reading the most recent notification where some kind reviewer asked me to please update. I was sitting next to a friend, studying for some college exam, when I got the notification. I read it and said, "How funny would it be if I just wrote another chapter? Like, just like that? Like, boom. After five years, all you had to do was say please." I love you all and I hope this chapter did you guys justice.
> 
> And to any of the readers that started reading this years ago, how am I doing? Any suggestions for directions to take this? Does someone want to finish the story? I am halfway through nursing school and am ready to start other writing projects of my own, and I honestly don't have any time for fanfiction anymore. This is probably my most beloved story, for some reason, so I would love to give people that conclusion they deserve, one way or another. So let me know. Peace out for maybe another five years. Who knows.


	11. The Stars Did Not Shine That Night

It was quite the unnerving feeling to have an internationally wanted criminal sitting next to you on a roller coaster, Aoko reflected. But there she was anyway - and there he was, with his hands in the air screaming at the top of his voice. This was their third time on the Dino Blast ride, and she was starting to recognize the curves and the drops. To her, it wasn't that exciting, but Kid was in love with the ride. So on and on they went. She just smiled politely and let her mind drift to other things - like how crazy it was that, of all things she could be doing on her day off from school, she was on a date with an _internationally wanted criminal_. On a dinosaur themed ride.

The rush and passion from Monday seemed to have faded over the past week. School had been as stressful as always, and Kaito had been distant. She had sorted out her feelings enough on that matter to come to the conclusion that Kaito was just a real piece of shit. After all, who strips someone naked in class? And who asks someone out after that? She still hadn't decided if his dating proposal was genuine, but judging from his current behavior it probably was. She felt flattered on Wednesday when she thought about that, but it was Friday now and she was just irate over the whole thing. If this was the way Kaito was going to show her that he liked her, than it was for the best that they weren't on speaking terms. Kaito had to learn how to be a proper gentleman - like Kid.

Kid was quite something. First, he was wearing a completely different disguise than the last time he was out in public with her. She wasn't sure why he couldn't have recycled the look. Maybe he didn't want her associating a fake identity with who he actually was? That was a nice thought. Second, he was really good at carnival games. Early in the afternoon, he had gone around to a bunch of ring toss and sharpshooter stalls and won her a bunch of stuffed animals. He even hid them somewhere for her - she wasn't sure where, but he promised to retrieve them at the end of the day. Third, and perhaps the most surprising of all, she liked being around him. He had a raw energy that cheered her up after the terrible week she'd had, and unlike Kaito he didn't make her feel insecure or ugly or stupid or dumb or -

Kid's voice cut through to her thoughts. "Aoko, are you hungry? It's just about dinner time."

"A little bit," she replied. "I don't want anything too heavy. What were you thinking of getting?"

"There's a stall that sells deep fried macaroni and cheese in pizza cones. Does that sound good to you?"

"Sounds great."

"I'm paying, by the way," Kid reminded her with a smile and a twinkle in his eye.

She felt a twinge of something inside her. Something - there for a moment - and gone so quickly. A guilty twinge. She recovered, and laughed, "I'd expect nothing less from a thief."

The couple arrived at the food stalls and Kid waved her away to go scout out a table. She brushed some crumbs off one in the way-way-back of the patio and watched Kid walk back with the two gigantic pizza cones.

As Aoko unwrapped her cone, a question came to mind. Maybe it was the dim lights, or the fatigue setting in after a long day, or the way he was looking at her in that moment, but she finally found the courage to ask it. "Can you tell me the story?"

Kid looked at her, mouth open and mid-bite. "Huh?"

"Last week - that first time you showed up in my room. You told me you couldn't tell me anything about your life. But you also said that the reason why you do what you do is because of a story. What's that story?"

"I can't tell you that," he said matter-of-factly, still chewing.

"Why not?" Aoko pressed. "Couldn't you just - tell it in a way that doesn't reveal your identity?"

He sat and masticated for a bit, mulling over her proposition in his head. Finally, he nodded his head. "I can give it a try. Just let me finish eating. It's a complicated story."

So they ate and talked about other, more superficial things for an hour until Kid finished his cone. Aoko could've sworn he was dragging it out and eating slowly on purpose. Was the story really that awful to talk about that Kid was trying so desperately to avoid it?

Kid threw his food scraps away and returned to the table. The food court was pretty desolate by then, with no chance of someone overhearing, but Kid said that he didn't want anyone overhearing their conversation and decided to go somewhere else. They left the theme park and wound up sitting on the bank of some strange creek that ran through the outskirts of town, a mile from the nearest building. In essence, they were alone.

They sat in silence for a bit, until Aoko prodded, "We're here. Now can you tell me the story?"

"Well, like I said - it's complicated," Kid said. He laid down on the grass, hands folded over his torso, like a patient talking to his psychologist. He cleared his throat and began. "I wasn't always Kaitou Kid."

"No shit," Aoko said, rolling her eyes. "Get on with it."

"What I mean is, there was one before me."

They both let that sentence sit in the air for a little while. This answered a question Aoko had been wondering for a while.

Kid continued after a few moments. "He was a good man. Great magician. I looked up to him." He swallowed. "The media doesn't show it but Kid has a lot of enemies. There's this one particular group that didn't like what he was doing. They wanted him gone. So they killed him."

"What?" Aoko felt herself say involuntarily, before launching into more cohesive thoughts. "Who could hate him that much? I mean, most people love Kid - err, him, and you. Even the owners of the jewelry that you steal -"

"These people in this group are also jewelry thieves. The first Kid - he got in their way. If that answers your question," Kid looked over at her before continuing. "Because what Kid does and what a normal jewelry thief does are very different. These people wanted to keep their stolen goods."

Aoko was puzzled. "Well, couldn't they just keep doing what they were doing? How does Kid impact what they're doing at all? It's not like he was taking jewels out of circulation."

Kid was quiet for a beat. "The first Kid was working for them. They hired him to find a certain gem, called Pandora. It's a very special jewel. When he found out why they wanted it, he tried to quit. And, more than that, he tried to stop them. So they killed him." Kid looked faraway and distant.

"What's so special about a rock?"

"A 'rock'?" Kid said incredulously, being brought back to earth. "It's not just any rock, Aoko. There's a rumor that if you hold it up to the moon, it will produce a tear, and if you drink that tear you will live forever."

"So that's why you always hold the jewel up to the sky when you steal something!"

"Yup, exactly. I'm looking for the same gem. And when I find it -" Kid ripped a handful of grass out of the soil and threw it up in the air like confetti. "- I'll destroy it. I'm going to finish what he started. And then I'll be done. Kid will be done."

"How did you know him?" Aoko asked suddenly, before clarifying, "The first Kid, I mean."

"Aoko, you know I can't tell you that. There aren't that many magicians out there, and it'd give it away."

"Fine," she relented easily. She looked up at the sky and saw the moon. "Do you think Pandora even exists?"

"No."

She laid down on the grass next to him, and they let the stillness and the silence sink slowly around them. He was a confusing guy, with lots of secrets and hidden plans, but he seemed to have his heart in the right place. She felt his arm wrap around her and she scooched herself closer to him. To hell with her father, to hell with Kaito. To hell with herself, even. She was in the arms of a wanted felon, enjoying the warmth of his skin and the beating of his heart. Together they moved on to a different, lighter conversation. And she was happy, for the first time in a while. Even if the stars did not shine that night.

He walked her back to her house around ten. They said their goodbyes, and then he was gone. She retreated to her room, where a billion stuffed animal prizes were waiting for her on her bed. Taking the cutest one - a hammerhead shark with a wide smile - she wrapped it in her arms and fell into her bed to drift off to sleep.

Just before the daze of the day turned into sleep, Aoko's mind churned her conversation with Kid over and over. And one line came back to haunt her.

 _There aren't that many magicians out there._ Well, fuck, there weren't. How many magicians did she know who fit the first Kid's profile - in age, ability, and death circumstances?

Like a rock, she fell asleep with the name 'Toichi-ojisan' on her lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys rock :)
> 
> But seriously, hope I'm doing this story justice. You guys deserve so much but I am so bad at delivering. I'm working on a book of my own right now but I can't get myself to write anything for it, so this is the closest I can get. Actually, I have two characters based loosely off of Kaito and Aoko, so this is kind of helpful with developing their characters, I suppose.
> 
> Sorry if this chapter sucks, I'm really tired. And I have a hard rule of not editing chapters, so what I write is what you get. Terrible work ethic, but that's why they (don't) pay me the big bucks.


	12. The Princess of Denial

The Saturday morning breeze blew in through Aoko's window as she fired up her videochat application on her computer. She scrolled quickly through her contacts before landing on one in particular. She listened to the application ring, and ring, and ring -

The other person picked up. "Hello, Aoko-chan?"

"Chikage-obasan, I have a question I need to ask you," Aoko blurted out. Then, as if surprised by her own impatience, asked, "But, first, how are you? How is Las Vegas?"

"Las Vegas is spectacular! The nights are so bright here. I'll have to fly you out to stay here one of these days," Chikage enthused. "I'll warn you, though - this place makes me never want to go home. I just love it here so much." A pause. "But, Aoko-chan, what did you want to ask?"

"It's about Toichi-ojisan..."

"Alright," Chikage nodded, suddenly straight-faced. Aoko could recognize that poker face anywhere.

Aoko began gently, as if her mouth were full of eggshells. "I know you might not want to talk about him, and I'm completely sensitive to the fact that this might be hard to talk about, so just let me know if you don't want to keep talking about Toichi-ojisan, and we don't have to, I just had a few questions -"

"Aoko-chan, it's been so long since he died. I miss him, but I'm not going to faint if I hear his name. You can ask me anything, dear."

 _Here goes nothing_. "Do you think Toichi-ojisan was ever involved in anything illegal? Or maybe used a secret identity to show off some riskier magic tricks?"

"Those are some specific questions, Aoko-chan. What made you think of them?"

"Well..." Aoko trailed. And then - "Chikage-obasan, you are the only person I can trust to tell this to. But you must keep this a secret. You can't tell anyone, including Kaito."

"From one woman to another: you have my word," Chikage promised.

"I met the Kaitou Kid," Aoko breathed. "More than met, I guess. Well - he came to my window but we met on a website but that's not important and we were friends but then we weren't and then we were and then we kissed and we went on a date to Tropical Land - and how weird is that? - and now I can't stop thinking about him and oh Chikage-obasan what am I even doing this is so illegal please tell me I'm being ridiculous." Aoko looked down in shame, out of breath from her sudden unloading of feelings. "So. That's it."

Chikage was silent for a moment, before clapping her hands together and exclaiming, "Oh, Aoko-chan, that is so exciting! I'm so happy for you two!"

"You don't think I'm being an idiot? I don't even know this guy. And he's a criminal."

"Know him?" Chikage laughed. "Aoko-chan, you don't need to know someone to _know_ him. Didn't I ever tell you how Toichi and I met?"

"No, I don't think so..."

"It's quite the story! But now's not the time for that. We have to get back to you and the future Mr. Nakamori Aoko - we're feminists, after all."

"Stop it!" Aoko giggled, feeling her cheeks turn beet red. "Anyway, he said something strange last night, which is why I called you."

"Strange?" Chikage echoed. "In what way?"

"In a weird, this-is-my-heroic-backstory type of way. He talked about there being a Kaitou Kid before him, which would make sense because Kid was active well over twenty years ago. But he also said he couldn't tell me who it was because there aren't that many good magicians out there." Aoko took a deep breath. "Which made me think about Toichi-ojisan."

"You think Toichi was Kaitou Kid?"

Aoko looked into Chikage's pixelated eyes, peering at her from her computer screen. Searched for an answer to a question she didn't ask yet. "Well, was he?"

It was Chikage's turn to stare into Aoko's soul. A few dead, empty seconds ticked by. And finally: "Yes."

Aoko breathed in a sigh of chilly morning air. There was the answer she knew she'd get, but now that she had it, she still didn't know how to feel. "I can't believe it."

"I'm sorry for keeping this secret from you for so long, Aoko-chan. We didn't even tell Kaito -"

Aoko interrupted quickly, "Don't worry, Chikage-obasan, I won't breathe a word of this to him. It'll stay a secret, from one woman to another."

A look of confusion passed briefly over Chikage's face - so briefly, even, that Aoko wasn't even sure she saw it. Aoko brushed past it to ask a question she was dying to know the answer to. "Did Toichi-ojisan have any students? Anyone that might have been an apprentice or something?"

"Toichi had lots of students. He was a very good teacher, and I'm sure plenty of them went on to lead very successful magic careers of their own."

"Are any of them the new Kaitou Kid?" Aoko asked, praying Chikage would tell her. She knew she knew.

"Aoko-chan, I love you like a daughter. But there are some things I am not allowed to tell you. Toichi has died and his story has become my own to carry. He told me about his secret life in confidence, and with him gone I am now the benefactor of his story. I can say anything I want about him and his life as Kaitou Kid. However, the second Kaitou Kid has a right to keeping his own identity secret. I know who he is, Aoko-chan, but if he won't tell you, then I won't either. As much as it pains me."

"I understand," Aoko nodded.

"Alright, dear. I hate to cut this call short but I have a show to attend in just a little bit." Chikage smiled at Aoko. "We'll talk again soon, hopefully about the two of you lovebirds setting an engagement date, alright?"

"Chikage-obasan!"

"Goodbye, Aoko-chan!"

An absolutely red-faced Aoko stared for a few long moments at the computer screen displaying a "call ended" message. Chikage had revealed more to Aoko than she probably realized. Aoko pondered the connection of the new Kaitou Kid to the old - who she now knew was Kaito's father. He was most definitely one of Toichi's students. Now able to reflect on the similarities, she realized that they had the same style, the same mannerisms, the same attitude, and the same _confidence_. And, thinking more deeply on the matter, she decided that he must have been one of Toichi's top students, or at least one close to the Kuroba family. Chikage had seemed overwhelmingly excited that Kid and Aoko were seeing each other. Aoko had never seen Chikage that enthusiastic about her love life before - of course, she was always delighted when Aoko talked about some guy in her class, but she had always made it clear that her ultimate hope for Aoko was to marry Kaito and live happily ever after.

Who was Kaitou Kid, that even he topped Kaito on Chikage's list of Guys She Hoped Aoko Would Marry?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you go. The mystery continues. I love Chikage and Aoko's relationship. It's so pure. Chikage obviously loves Aoko like the daughter she never had, but there are boundaries that she just can't cross. Chikage is willing to confirm Aoko's suspicions, but she won't just give away information to her - that is, she won't lie to Aoko, but that doesn't mean she'll tell her everything.
> 
> Side note; I just find it hilarious that Aoko thinks that Chikage revealed "more than she probably realized" but Aoko doesn't even connect that the obvious identity of Kaitou Kid is... Kaito. I'm chalking it down to unconscious denial. She's not even considering the possibility of Kaito being Kid, because that's just too absurd for her to think about. You ever have one of those moments? When you realize something that you didn't even give a second thought to, since you thought it was just a part of your normal, daily life? That.


	13. Whose Heist?

It was the first headline Aoko saw when she was scrolling through her phone's news app that following Sunday morning. She had been enjoying her breakfast to the tune of a slow, easy morning. But the headline changed everything. Bowl of cheerios in hand, she marched herself right up to her room and flung the door shut. Slamming a few extra bits of cheerios in her mouth, she dialed Kid's number furiously and waited as it rang.

" _Ao...ko?_ " A tired, familiar voice croaked. Someone just woke up, it seemed.

"What the fuck, Kid?" She seethed. "This is not how I want my Sunday to go."

" _Wait, what?_ "

 _"'KID SENDS COPS NEW HEIST_ _NOTE_ '? Does that headline sound familiar, you asshole?"

" _Aoko, I don't understand._ " Kid's groggy voice seemed to be scratching its head. " _What heist?_ "

"You tell me! It's all over the news!"

A beat of silence. Kid was presumably looking at the news. " _Hold on._ "

_Call ended._

Aoko looked at her phone screen in utter shock. Did that motherless bastard really just hang up on her? Did that really just happen? Oh that bastard Kid was going to be in for the whooping of a lifetime the next time she saw him because absolutely NOBODY hangs up on Nakamori Aoko -

A tapping at her screen zapped Aoko out of her stewing. Kid was there, in full garb. "Hey, Aoko."

"You piece of shit!" Aoko breathed furiously, practically ripping the screen out of the window and ushering Kid inside. "What if my father saw you?"

"He didn't."

"That's beside the point!"

"But he didn't!"

"But what if he did!"

"But he didn't!"

"I don't care!" Aoko yelled. Then, regaining some composure so as to not alert her father to her unwanted visitor. "Explain the note."

"I didn't send it."

"Liar!" Aoko shoved Kid towards the window. "Liar! Liar! Liar!"

"I'm not lying, Aoko!" Kid's voice became more stern. A flicker of anger rose up in his face. "And what if I did? Since when am I not allowed to plan heists anymore? I don't think that ever came up in any of our discussions!"

"I just figured - I didn't think you would - oh you are just so infuriating! I ought to just push you out this window and -"

The distinctive sound of footsteps coming up the staircase hushed the arguing couple into silence, both whipping their attention to the closed door. In a matter of seconds, Aoko knew, all would be revealed. All her father had to do was open that door and everything would fall to pieces.

"Aoko, are you alright? I heard yelling," Ginzo said as he opened the door. Then he took in the sight.

A second passed. Maybe more. To Aoko it felt like an eternity, her eyes fixated on her father's unfathomable expression. Ice coasted through her veins.

Ginzo smiled. "Ah, so that's what all the yelling was." He turned to leave, but not before adding, "Don't kill each other, you two!" The door clicked closed.

And with that he was gone. Aoko stared blankly at her closed door once more, not believing reality. Words and thoughts and emotions jostled around in her mouth for a beat before she figured out what to say. "What?"

She turned around to see the face of her childhood best friend - Kaito.

"Quick thinking, huh?" Kid chuckled.

She slapped him in the face. "Don't you dare disguise yourself as Kaito again!"

"Aoko." Kid's voice was noticeably less irate than before. He seemed to have calmed down - or at least regained his Poker Face - in the brief moment that her father had interrupted them. "Just sit down and we can talk about this like two adults, alright?"

Aoko huffed for about five seconds. Steam blew out her ears and her nostrils and her eye sockets but finally... "Fine."

The two sat down on the ground and, at Kid's command, took a deep breath together.

"Better?" he asked.

"A little bit," she conceded. "But I do still want you to take off that Kaito mask. It's a little unnerving."

"Actually, I think it'd be better if I stayed like this. Just in case - you know, your father comes back up."

"Alright," Aoko reluctantly agreed. It seemed reasonable.

"So," Kid began. "I gather that there's a new heist note that's been sent to the news outlets. I didn't send that, Aoko. And I don't know who did."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Kid looked up to the ceiling. "I don't know yet. I guess I kind of have to go to it, though. It's got my name all over it. I can't have some imposter running around and trashing my reputation, now can I? And who knows what they plan to do? The cops might be prepared for a normal heist, but there's no telling what this person's got in store for us. Something bad, obviously, but what? Violence? Murder?" He looked at Aoko with a mock-serious face. "Actual theft?"

"But why can't you just send a note to the cops saying the heist note wasn't from you?" Aoko tried.

"That'd be too confusing. The cops wouldn't know which note is real. And do you really think they'd take the word of a wanted criminal?" Kid shook his head. "I just have to go and try to stop the imposter. As soon as I figure out the heist note, that is."

Kid brought the note up on his phone and stared at it quizzically. "This doesn't make much sense. " He turned the phone screen to show it to Aoko.

_We always wander alone  
Once more I will stumble and fall  
His open eyes will gaze at my bloody face  
One by one, the night will come  
-KID_

"You really didn't send that?" Aoko asked, incredulously.

Kid shook his head. "It doesn't read like a regular heist note, either. And the signature is wrong. Whoever is copying me is either lazy or careless." Kid thought for a minute. "Or sending a message."

"Regardless, Kid's - your notes always state what you're going to steal, and when. Maybe this note says that too?"

They looked closer at the note. Kid scratched his head. "Well, I'd take a wild guess and assume the time is eleven at night."

"Kind of a strangely specific 'wild guess,' don't you think?"

"Not really," Kid said, pointing at the last line. "' _One by one_ ' refers to two one's next to each other, or eleven. And it'd be at night because the note says exactly that."

"Oh," Aoko said, rereading the note. "Then what's going to be stolen?"

"La Peregrina."

"What's that?"

Kid leaned back on his hands. "It's a jewel I've been tossing around in my head. I've thought about stealing it for a while." Then he chuckled. "It's funny, because I actually might have ended up sending this letter myself if I had realized it was on display nearby. Speaking of which -" He flipped through his phone for a few quick seconds. "Just as I suspected. It's here for a limited time in the Tokyo Museum."

"But hold on," Aoko plucked the phone out of his hand and skimmed through the article. "What makes you think the note's even talking about this La Pere-whatever?"

"It's La Peregrina. But if you turn your attention to this line," Kid pointed at the first line. "The note refers to wandering. La Peregrina is also known as The Wanderer. So, there's that."

"What about the rest of the note?"

"I'm really not sure. The third line might just be referring to the appearance of the necklace. There are several rubies embedded in it - they might give off the appearance of blood droplets. But that's not really what the necklace is known for. Perhaps it's referring to its bloody past? It was found by slaves in the 1600s. But then there's the second line that we haven't even touched yet. And we still don't know the date." Kid sighed. "I just don't know."

Aoko let out a laugh. "The great Kaitou Kid finally understands what it's like to be stumped by his riddles!"

"Huh?" Kid looked at her, as if she just put an idea in his head. "That's right, Aoko!"

Kid dipped towards her and kissed her quickly, taking his phone back from her and dialing a number on it a second later. He winked at her as it rang.

A voice on the other line answered. _"Hello?"_

 _"_ Ah, tantei-kun, did you see my latest note? _"_

_"I did. But Kid, what are you doing calling me like this?"_

"What'd you think of it?"

" _La Peregrina, 11pm at the Tokyo Museum tonight. Is that correct?_ "

"That matches up with what I got. But tonight, really?"

_"The full moon is tonight. I figured the full moon is the best time to see the moon. Additionally, your note specifically refers to gazing at a face, and considering the moon is often portrayed as a face in the sky in children's novels, tonight was the only choice."_

"Which you would know a lot about, wouldn't you?"

_"Hey, hey, hey..."_

"Anyway, the way you explained it makes sense. Well then, thanks and bye -"

_"Wait, hold on, Kid - what?"_

"I was just checking notes so that we'll be at the same place. That's all."

_"I don't understand. Did you not send that note?"_

"I won't confirm or deny anything."

_"Great, helpful as always, Kid. Hey, next time maybe don't call me if you're going to be super cryptic about everything?"_

"Noted. By the way, your voice seems different. Finally got over that little problem of yours? Or do you just have a cold?"

_"Just a temporary remedy. So don't think you can get away with disguising yourself as me this time around."_

"Thanks for the heads up, tantei-kun. See you tonight."

Kid hung up the phone. Aoko looked at him incredulously. "Who was that?"

"The one person I knew wouldn't be stumped by the riddle."

Angry footsteps came running back up the stairs again, and Aoko's father came barreling through her bedroom door. "That bastard thief sent another note!"

Kid looked at Aoko, both trying to stop themselves from laughing. Aoko regained herself, saying, "Um Dad, that's old news. We already figured out the note."

"Just the two of you?" Ginzo asked in disbelief. "I was about to call the task force and assemble them at the station. But what were you two thinking?"

Kid gestured to Aoko to explain. Caught off guard, Aoko explained the note, leaving out the fact they had called someone for help. "...and that's why it'll be tonight at 11pm."

"Great thinking, kids! I'll present that theory at the station and see what the rest of the team thinks." Ginzo started dialing up his team, then stopped. He looked at Kid carefully before saying, "Aoko, what did I say about eating food in your room?"

"Sorry dad!" Aoko sprung up, grabbed her bowl and ran out of the room, down to the kitchen. As she returned, she heard her father speaking to Kid, and slowed her steps. Her dad was clearly saying something to Kid that he didn't want her to hear.

"... stay by her side during the heist. If you're right that there might be an imposter, Kaito, this might get dangerous."

"I'll try my best," Kid said. Aoko chose then to walk in. Ginzo cleared his throat and said, "So I'll just get going to the station then. Love you, Aoko."

"Love you, dad. Bye!" Aoko said as her dad left. After making sure the coast was clear, she turned to Kid, still mildly surprised by how convincing his Kaito disguise was, considering how improvised it was. "What was that about? My dad doesn't think I can handle myself at the heist tonight?"

"I told him about the imposter 'theory' we had, so he's just nervous and asked me to be there. For you," he added.

"Actually, Kid," Aoko corrected. "He asked Kaito to be there. Not you."

Kid blinked. "I guess you're right."

They looked at each other. Aoko sighed. "I guess I better go call him and ask him to come with me. Bakaito's always so busy so hell take some convincing, absolute nitwit -"

Kid tensed as she took out her cell phone, and interrupted her, "I've got a lot to prepare for before the heist tonight so I better get going. Bye Aoko!"

He jumped out the window before Aoko could say goodbye. Aoko stood there, Kaito's number half-dialed, blinking in confusion. Then she finished dialing and waited for Kaito to pick up.

" _Hello?_ " Kaito's voice seemed out of breath.

"Kaito, I need you to come with me to Kid's heist tonight. Don't ask questions."

_"That's a pretty strange way of asking me on a date, Ahoko, but if you insist -"_

"Thanks, I owe you. Bye." She hung up.

At long last she let out a huge groan and sprawled herself across the floor. Her quiet Sunday morning had just turned into an eventful day - soon to be followed by an eventful night - and she hadn't even had a chance to think about her conversation with Chikage from yesterday! She eyed her stack of homework sitting on her desk, long forgotten since Friday. She really ought to do it before tonight, she knew, but it was oh-so-tempting to investigate a little bit further about who Toichi's past apprentices might be.

She rolled onto her stomach and thought a bit about how she could go about finding that information out. Asking Kid was right out, for obvious reasons. Chikage had admitted she'd be no help on the matter, only offering information so far as admitting that Kid was related in some way to the Kuroba family. Kaito was so young that he probably wouldn't even remember anything. Her father had been a close friend of Toichi's, but he was going to be busy for the rest of the day handling the not-Kid heist. That left only one person to ask.

In a flash Aoko collected her purse and rushed out of the house. This person would definitely have some answers!


	14. The Red Herring and the Blue Parrot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kazumi Sanada was not canonically a student of Toichi's, but for my purposes he was. *Michael Scott voice* So sue me. Actually don't. Anyway the DC wiki lists Kazumi's age at around 27, so he'd be about 19 while studying under Toichi, which isn't ridiculous. So let's pretend Toichi was his first teacher and then he got a new one after Toichi died. Sounds good.
> 
> Additionally, while doing research for this chapter I found out that Gosho Aoyama has basically confirmed that Toichi isn't dead? That's not really relevant to this story, I'm just a little shooketh is all.

A little bell chimed as Aoko walked through the door of the Blue Parrot. She looked around and noticed the place seemed deserted. She backed up a few steps to look for a sign that would tell her if the place were open or not. Eventually she found the Hours of Operations page, hidden on the wall behind some flyer:

**MONDAY: CLOSED**  
**TUESDAY: CLOSED**  
**WEDNESDAY: 6PM - 2AM**  
**THURSDAY: 6PM - 2AM**  
**FRIDAY: 6PM - 2AM**  
**SATURDAY: 6PM -2AM**  
**SUNDAY: 6PM - 2AM**  
****HOURS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AT OWNER'S DISCRETION****

She could've slapped herself. She was early by at least - she checked her watch - nine hours! Of course they weren't open. Her eyes trailed back to the door. Strange... why would the door be unlocked if they were closed? Jii must be there then! She called out, "Jii-san, are you here?"

Muffled voices came from the back room. She couldn't make out the words, but if she strained she thought she heard a bit of panic in their tones. The door to the back room opened and shut quickly as Jii entered the main hall and greeted Aoko. "Ah! Aoko-san, what can I do for you today?"

"Who's back there?" Aoko looked over his shoulder, trying to see through the door.

"Nobody! Nobody at all," Jii smiled, obviously covering something up.

"But I heard you talking to someone -" Aoko tried.

"Oh, was I? I talk to myself a lot when I'm here alone. This place can be kind of creepy otherwise."

Aoko looked at him, wondering whether to protest against his obvious lies more or to get to the matter she came here for. She decided to just jump right in to the matter at hand - but carefully, of course. Wouldn't want to give too much away and scare him from revealing something she wanted to know. Jii was quite the Nervous Nelly. One wrong word and he'd probably clam up like... well, a clam. "Anyway, I was just wondering if you ever met any of Toichi-san's apprentices?"

A suspicious glint rose up in Jii's eyes. So that answered the question of if he knew anything. It was just a matter of getting him to spill it. Jii gave his answer slowly. "I did meet a few, but why do you ask?"

"I just was curious about..." Aoko thought quickly. What would she be curious about? What would bring her to Jii's pool hall in the middle of a Sunday? "I just was curious about if any of them are famous and local. I'm sure Kaito told you we're in the middle of a fight and I figured I'd try to be the bigger person, so I was thinking I could make it up to him and surprise him with tickets to see a magician who trained under his father."

Convincing? Hopefully. Any intention to follow through? Well, now that she said it...

Jii seemed to un-tense. "I see! Let me think back. There are some that I remember. Yukiko-san, Sharon-san, Sanada-san -"

"Sanada? Like Kazumi Sanada?" Aoko questioned. A magician that she'd actually heard of!

"Exactly," Jii nodded. "He was quite the brilliant student. Probably the closest to a star pupil that a teacher could ask for. Master Toichi would have been proud to see him performing now."

 _Jii certainly has a lot of praise for this guy!_ Aoko thought. _And Chikage-san definitely thinks highly of Kid... maybe this guy is Kid?_

There was only one way to see. But looking at Jii and how defensive he was initially, she doubted she would get any answers out of him.

"I'll definitely have to get tickets for one of his shows," Aoko said, and then questioned as innocently as she could, "Though, speaking of magic shows, how's this one coming along?"

"Pardon, Aoko-san?" Jii asked, blinking in confusion.

"Nevermind, Jii-san," she smiled. Then, checking her watch, she said, "Oh, I've got to get going now. Thank you again!"

Leaving the Blue Parrot, Aoko found herself in a mix of emotions. On the one hand, she hadn't exactly confirmed if Jii was actually working with Kid - even if she was close to one hundred percent sure that Kid was in the back room scheming with Jii at that very moment. And she hadn't confirmed Kid's true identity, either. But she had a name, and from the way Jii had spoken about that guy...

Pulling out her cellphone, she did a quick Google search for 'Kazumi Sanada.' Results quickly loaded. She gazed on the man's face, briefly wondering if this was truly the face of the man that was in her bedroom that morning. She tapped on one of the first results: Kazumi Sanada dressed in a Kaitou Kid costume. She laughed to herself. Could he be any more obvious? She tapped the picture and skimmed the article, which detailed his performance on a boat owned by the Suzuki foundation where a gem called the Black Star had been stolen by... Kaitou Kid.

Aoko put her phone away. This more than proved it. This cemented it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aoko has literally zero evidence that Kazumi is Kid but (fun reminder) it's easy to believe in something if you want to convince yourself about something. She has a lot of blinders on, but the reason for that should be obvious... she knows, deep deep down, that there's only one obvious person for Kid to be at this point. And she'll do anything to convince herself otherwise.


	15. Bakaito!

Kaito arrived at around eight o'clock at night to pick her up for the heist, which seemed early to her considering that Kaitou Kid's heist was only supposed to start around eleven. She opened the front to let him in, saying, "Bakaito, I'm not ready yet!"

"Well hurry up, Ahoko!" Kaito seemed to be bristled by something. "Going to this thing was your idea, anyway."

Aoko felt steam come from her ears. She forgot how angry she had been at him for the past few weeks, even if she had forgiven him for whatever prank it was that got her mad at him in the first place. "If you don't want to come, then you should just go home! I'll go by myself!"

"Fine!" Kaito retorted. "Bye, then."

He left as quickly as he arrived. Aoko felt a pit in her stomach open up. That really didn't go well - what was up with Kaito? He was really acting like a damn asshole, she decided.

And then she remembered the conversation in her room from earlier that morning. Kaito was supposed to bring her to the heist and stay by her side because Kid had told her father that Kaito would be there. Kaito had to be there! Although, she supposed she could always tell her dad the truth - that Kaito and her had had a fight, and he bailed at the last second. But that wouldn't look good for Kaito at all, especially when Kid had _promised_ her father to protect her. How could she make Kaito break a promise he didn't even know he made?

"Whatever," Aoko settled upon. Her father would be too busy to notice. She would go alone to the heist and just stay out of the way.

* * *

Arriving at the high-rise that the heist was to be held at around an hour later, Aoko was surprised to find the police already on high alert and in position. In the middle of the commotion, she could see her father barking out orders to his subordinates. She frowned as she looked around - something was putting _her_ on high alert as well. It was probably the fact that this was an imposter's heist, not Kid's. She had no way of knowing how this night was going to turn out.

"Aoko?" A hesitant voice from behind her questioned, somewhat unsure.

She turned to face the person who spoke. "Bakaito? What are you doing here? I thought you weren't coming?"

"I changed my mind," Kaito said.

"So you aren't mad?"

"Mad?" He asked.

"About our fight earlier?"

He blinked, seemingly confused, before laughing. "Oh, that? That was a fight?"

Aoko laughed as well. So she had just been being silly! Kaito and her fought all the time - of course that little argument wasn't going to blossom into a full-blown fight. She blamed it on the recent month-long falling out that they had had. She was scared of losing him again.

"Well, the fake - I mean, Kid's only supposed to show up in like two hours, so we've got some time to kill before then," Aoko said. "Did you want to take a look at the gem that he's supposed to be taking?"

"Sure," Kaito said enthusiastically. He always seemed to like looking at those jewels whenever he came with her to these heists.

So they migrated their way through the crowd of policemen until they reached the pedestal that held the jewel necklace, La Peregrina. Kaito seemed to look at it very closely, and he looked around the pedestal as well. "It doesn't look like Kid swapped it out yet - it looks like the real deal. Although, I'm not a gem expert."

"Obviously not," Aoko chuckled.

"Oi, oi, what's that supposed to mean?" Kaito asked, unamused.

Just then Inspector Nakamori approached the pair. "Good to see you two, Aoko and Kaito-kun."

"How's the situation looking, Inspector?" Kaito asked. In a lower voice, he asked, "Do we know anything about the imposter's motives?"

How did Kaito know about the imposter? Aoko didn't remember telling him anything about that. She chalked it up to bad memory.

"We don't have much to go off of," the Inspector said, shaking his head. "As much as I hate to say it, it's a waiting game now."

Kaito looked around the room with a piercing, observant gaze. "Do you think that they have any connection to the real Kaitou Kid?"

"I think that'd be a good question for him to answer for us," a snarky, British voice said from behind them. Aoko turned to see Hakuba approaching, clad in his tweed suit as usually. He added, "Don't you agree, Kuroba-kun?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Kaito rebutted, a little more defensively than usual.

"Oh, Hakuba-kun, you're here as well," the Inspector said.

"As well?" Aoko asked.

The Inspector pointed across the room to a teenager in a blue high school uniform suit. "We're swamped with high school detectives, it seems. That Kudo Shinichi boy from Tokyo decided to make an appearance, as if he has nothing better to do."

Kaito laughed and elbowed the Inspector. "You're just jealous because he has a better track record at catching criminals than you do!"

"Damn hell he doesn't when it comes to Kid," the Inspector growled. "As far as I care, he hasn't caught the bastard yet, either."

"He usually only deals with murder cases, though," Hakuba stated suspiciously. "Odd of him to show up for a Kid heist."

"Is it, though?" Kaito asked.

Hakuba's eyes shifted to him. "Yes, it is. Quite odd."

"Anyway," the Inspector interrupted. "Kaito-kun, Aoko, I hate to ask this of you but would you mind keeping some distance between yourselves and this place? Considering the high possibility that we're dealing with an imposter, we can't be sure that the situation might not escalate higher than normal Kid heists."

"Sure thing," Kaito nodded, looking a little dejected for basically being kicked out of the heist.

The pair left the high-rise and found themselves on the sidewalk in front of it. Aoko stared up at it, a little worried about Kid. She wouldn't be there to keep an eye on him and keep him safe.

Beside her, Kaito was looking around the street with that same piercing gaze as before. Noticing his serious expression, she laughed. "Kaito, what are you looking at?"

"Oh - uh, nothing," he said. Then he pointed across the street. "Hey, let's go to the aquarium."

The aquarium? "Um, are you sure?"

"Yeah, it'll be fun," he said, already crossing the road. "And it's open late!"

Aoko followed after him quickly, not wanting to be stuck on the other side of the road from him. The aquarium it was, she supposed. And at least she'd be close by to the heist, so that if something went wrong - if somehow, something happened to Kid - she'd be able to be there.

At the aquarium.


	16. The Aquarium

There they were, standing in the middle of a hallway in the deserted aquarium. It seemed that, although the aquarium was open late, nobody else seemed to want to visit the aquarium instead of watching Kid's - or the imposter's, but the didn't know that - magic show. Blue lights floated around the room, making them feel like they were underwater. On two sides of them, large panels of glass blocked them from a surge of water and electric eels. Kaito seemed to be reading an exhibit plaque with a bored, forced interest.

Aoko turnd her head up and noticed some more glass on the ceiling, with more little fishies swimming past in a line. "Oh, they're so cute!"

Kaito looked at them, too, before turning back to her and smiling and nodding in agreement.

They moved slowly into a larger room with a giant skylight that allowed the stars to peer down into the building. Looking up through it, Aoko noticed that she had a clear view of the top of the high-rise across the street. In the room itself, there were tanks scattered around - some were built into the walls, some were built into the floor, some were stand-alone, some were open-to-air. Aoko approached an open tank filled with stingrays, reading a sign that said, **_"PET ME!"_**

"Aren't stingrays dangerous, though?" Aoko asked, warily.

Kaito shook his head, looking at them closer. "Most aquariums remove their poisonous barbs before putting them out for exhibition. Now they are no more dangerous than a goldfish."

"How do you know so much about stingrays?"

"I read a lot," Kaito shrugged, then pointed. "Also, there's an information sign right next to where you're looking that explains it all."

Aoko followed where he pointed and found said sign exactly where he said it was. "Oh..."

They perused the aquarium for a few more minutes in comfortable silence. Aoko loved looking at all the species of fish and reading that such-and-such fish was used to make such-and-such sushi. Mostly, though, she enjoyed Kaito's companionship. She hadn't been around him for an extended period of time in a month. They had so much catching up to do. But where to start? She couldn't tell him anything about Kid - that was out of the question! Besides the obvious part about their meetings being incredibly illegal, and the fact that she had promised Chikage-san that she wouldn't breathe a word of the matter to Kaito, there was also the lingering feeling that she'd be hurting him by saying it. After all, he had asked her out, and she had been quite rude in her denial (although, she stands by that she thought he was joking at the time... and still the jury was out about that). But what could she share with him?

"Kaito," Aoko said to the boy next to her. "I missed you."

"Huh?" He seemed startled by her voice.

She sighed and looked away, feeling a little embarrassed by her confession. "This past month, we've just been fighting over some stupid thing. You're my best friend and it hurt not to be able to talk to you about anything."

Kaito seemed to tense up as she spoke, as if he was uncomfortable with this line of conversation. Instead, he pulled a classic Kaito move and opted for redirection. He pressed his face up to a glass tank on the wall and said. "Look how stupid the pufferfish look!"

Aoko crossed her arms, angry and hurt. She had just tried to open up to Kaito - to try to bridge the gap between them - and he just ignored her? She stared at him, with his eyes trained on the pufferfish in the tank, with those _piercing, observant_ eyes wishing and hoping she would...

She would what? Drop the topic and look at the fish?

Look at the fish, she did. Something wasn't adding up.

Her eyes flicked between the fish and Kaito's intent stare. He seemed so fascinated by them, so incredibly -

 _Not scared of them_.

Why had it taken her so long to put her finger on it? She looked at Kaito, looked at his demeanor. He was leaning into the tank, almost trying to get closer to the fish. Her Kaito - the REAL Kaito - wouldn't do that. He'd be too scared. He'd be looking for a way out of the aquarium. He wouldn't have even suggested going to the aquarium. Who was this Kaito, then?

She looked at him more closely. Could he be Kid? Surely Kid would have revealed himself to her once they were in private. She wouldn't put it past him to be pulling a prank on her, thinking this was funny, though, so she couldn't rule him completely out. Could he be the imposter? What would the imposter want to do with her? Did someone somehow realize that _she_ had been spending time with Kid and decide to target her? She shivered. They didn't actually know what this heist was about.

But still, this fake Kaito didn't give off that vibe to her. She was sure she wasn't good at reading people, but she hoped she'd be able to pick out someone who had dangerous plans for her. This guy didn't strike her as such.

What did he strike her as, though? Well, reviewing her conversation with him since they met up at the heist - he seemed particularly prone to avoidance behaviors. He didn't want to get stuck in a heart to heart about something like her feelings. Something that he wouldn't know anything about. Although, that could just be how Kaito would respond, anyway. But maybe there was something she could do, related to that line of thinking...

"Kaito, I've been thinking about us," Aoko said timidly. She was nervous if her plan was going to work, and felt premature guilt for what it would entail.

"What about us?" (the fake?) Kaito asked, starting to sweat.

"You know," Aoko said, twirling her fingers together. It was a nervous tic she never could get rid of. "About where we're going in our relationship."

"Oh," Kaito said, eyes searching for a way out of the conversation. "Uh..."

Aoko closed her eyes. _Kid, I'm sorry. This doesn't mean a thing._ Aoko continued. "I love you."

Kaito looked helpless. Guess he didn't have any lines to use to steer the conversation elsewhere. "Um..."

"It's just that I feel that you've been distant from me all night and it kind of makes me want to break up, though," Aoko said. "And, besides, recently I started talking to this _really great guy_. I actually think you would like him if you met him."

She heard a strangled noise come from Kaito's throat. Perhaps he realized he was losing control of the situation. After all, she was setting him up to do something Kaito would never do. She almost continued on, in her emotional lie-ridden lambasting.

She didn't get to continue, though, because she suddenly found her lips connecting with his. It was a short, simple kiss - but a kiss nonetheless. And when she yanked her head back, it was Kaito's eyes that she found.

"I can't bear to lose you, Aoko," he said.

She stared back at him. She felt helpless. After so many years of fostering a crush on Kaito - after sidestepping it so that she could go out with the _bad boy_ Kid - after getting angry so many times just in this past day - after lying directly to Kaito's face just now -

"Bingo," she said. "Wrong move."

Kaito's eyes widened. "What - Aoko -"

"I'm not stupid, you know," Aoko said. "I know you're not Kaito."

He raised his hands defensively. "Aoko, stop playing around. What makes you think that? What proof do you have?"

"That kiss," Aoko said. "Kaito could _never_."

"But we're dating -"

"Wrong," Aoko chimed.

Kaito fell silent.

Aoko explained. "Kaito and I are just friends. Furthermore, we've barely spoken in the past month, and he's a complete asshole. Why would Kaito kiss me after we've been fighting this whole time?"

"I'm secretly in love with you?" Kaito tried.

"Nope," Aoko felt herself burn up. She actually wasn't sure about that, but she was so confident in this _not_ being Kaito that she didn't really have to get bogged down in the intricacies of her relationship with him. "Even if that was true, there's the glaring mistake that you made that reveals you as definitely not being Kaito."

"And what was that?"

Aoko smiled. "Kaito's scared of fish."

She watched the boy's eyes trail all around the room with resignation. There was no explaining this one away.

"You caught me," Fake Kaito said. "You're a smart girl, Nakamori-san."

"So who are you actually?"

He smiled deviously, before announcing... "Kaitou Kid!"

Aoko laughed out loud at that one. She laughed so hard that she bent over and put her hands on her knees, gasping for air.

Fake Kaito blinked. "What's so funny about me being Kaitou Kid?"

"So, what? You're the imposter?" Aoko said, regaining her composure and wiping her tears from her eyes. She was still feeling quite giggly, though.

"No, I told you," he said stubbornly. "I am the Kaitou Kid!"

Aoko waved her hand dismissively. "I don't even want to explain to you how I know that one's false. Basically - this entire conversation could have _never_ happened. And Kaitou Kid wouldn't have kissed me as Kaito."

"Well," Fake Kaito said, crossing his arms across his chest. "I'm certainly not the imposter."

Aoko stared at him, confused. "Wait, if you're not Kaito or Kid, and you're not the imposter - who are you?"

He flashed a wide smile, and proudly pronounced, "Kudo Shinichi!"

This just made Aoko more confused. What was the famous high school detective Kudo Shinichi doing _here_ , pretending to be her best friend? And doing a bad job at it, for that matter? "I thought you were up at the heist - my father pointed you out across the room. I saw you there!"

"That was a trick," Kudo said. "Kid was disguised as me."

"But why are you disguised as Kaito? And why wouldn't you try to stop him if you knew that he was disguised as you?"

Kudo rolled his eyes. "The idiot came to my house and asked me to do a favor for him."

"And you agreed?"

"I didn't have much of a choice," he said. "He stole my medication that I'm supposed to take tomorrow morning and told me that he'd only give it back if I helped him out with something. And he specifically needed me."

"Wait," Aoko said. "Medication? He took your medication?"

"It's a long story, so we won't get into that," Kudo said. "But he said he wanted me to disguise as some guy named Kuroba Kaito and look after you during the heist."

"Why would he want that?"

"I'm not really sure. He mentioned something about disguising as Kuroba Kaito and promising Inspector Nakamori something along those lines."

"Oh," Aoko said, finally connecting the dots. "So when he realized that Kaito was being a Bakaito and wasn't going to come with me, he decided to use a substitute Kaito to fool my dad. But that doesn't really explain why he picked you to be the substitute. Why couldn't he use his assistant?"

Kudo pulled on his cheeks. "Because I don't have to wear a mask, I guess. This Kuroba Kaito guy and I apparently look very similar. I was nervous that you would figure it out right away, but you didn't. I guess that's why -"

He fell into deep thought, before reemerging from his brief trance. "So that's how it is."

"That's how what is?"

"Nothing," Kudo smiled secretly. "I just know why he wanted me to disguise as this person so bad. And I know what Kid's true identity is, as well!"

"What?" Aoko said, shocked. "How? Who? Huh?"

The entire room suddenly lit up with an intense orange color, followed by a tremendous rolling, thunderous sound. Kudo and Aoko looked up through the aquarium's skylight just in time to see a large, golden inferno explode on the top level of the high rise next door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing from Aoko's viewpoint is hard, especially when she's coming into contact with all these people disguised as other people. Anyway, Shinichi obviously just connected the dots that Kaito is Kid. I thought it was funny - he was just like "Kid was being weird and asked me to disguise as this fool Kuroba and he picked me because I don't have to wear a mask" but then there's the unsaid, "Oh shit that's why he always disguises as me - because he doesn't have to wear a mask either!" Aoko isn't allowed to follow that train of thought, since she's not allowed to know Kid's true identity because of her own stupid denial.


	17. Tell Me You Love Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So I wrote myself into a bit of a corner last chapter. No worries. No biggie. I've got a plan. In the meantime, here's a cute little chapter that'll make you go "awww." Lots of KidxAoko fluff. Enjoy! 3

"Stay here!" Kudo yelled at Aoko as he ran to leave the aquarium.

"No way," Aoko said, chasing after him. "Kid could be hurt!"

"Then stay close to me," Kudo said to her, waiting for her to catch up. "He asked me to protect you and I can't do that if I lose you."

Kudo and Aoko booked it out of the aquarium and darted across the street, where the police blockade in front of the high-rise had been torn apart by swarms of frightened people running for their lives. Running into the building, they quickly realized the stairs were clogged up by people escaping the now-burning building and the elevators had been shut off. Fire alarms were sounding in the building, piercing their ears with their loud, high-pitched sounds.

"How do we get to the roof?" Aoko said, searching for any possible routes up. There were none.

"What makes you so sure he's still on the roof?" Kudo said, eyes scanning the lobby as well. "I know he's insane but I'm pretty sure he's not suicidal."

They stood in the lobby, bodies pushing against them as the crowd tried to evacuate. Aoko clutched onto Kudo, trying not to get lost in the crowd. Kudo right now was her best bet for keeping Kid safe, and she needed his full concentration on that task. She didn't need him wasting time trying to find her.

"There!" Kudo said, eyeing a door. They rushed into it.

It certainly wasn't the location Aoko would have thought to find Kid in. As a matter of fact, Kid _wasn't_ there. It was the men's restroom. She looked over at Kudo with a questioning glance. He approached the first stall and threw the door open, explaining as he peered around inside, "Kid usually uses toilet stalls to change into his disguises."

"There's got to be at least a thousand restrooms in this building, though!" Surely Kudo wasn't grasping at straws at a critical moment like this?!

"Yes, but only one accessible by the lobby. He usually knocks his victim out before entering the room where his heist will take place, and then disguises as them to get past security." Kudo opened the last door and grinned. "Aha."

Aoko looked into the stall to see what Kudo was grinning at. It was a middle-aged balding man in an undershirt and boxers. His arms were bound to his torso with a thick cord of rope, his mouth was duct-taped shut, and he was looking at them with wide, scared eyes. Kudo peeled the tape off the man's mouth and untied his arms. "Who tied you up?"

"Kaitou Kid!" the man said. "He hit me over the head with something hard and heavy, and then tied me up and left me here. He stole my clothes."

"Who are you?"

"Juuzo Humizo. I'm a security guard on the basement level. Man, I did not sign up for this bullshi-"

Kudo appeared deep in thought. Aoko nudged him. "What's up, Kudo-kun?"

"Something's not adding up. Kid wouldn't have had a need to knock this guy up for a disguise because -"

Realization dawned as Aoko followed Kudo's train of logic. "- he's already disguised as you."

"Exactly. Which means the imposter is the one who knocked this guy out." Kudo looked back at the undressed security guard. "Can you remember anything about Kaitou Kid when he knocked you out?"

"It hurt like a bitch?"

"This guy is useless," Kudo said, already walking away. Then, calling over his shoulder, he began to leave the bathroom. "Nakamori-san, are you coming?"

Aoko looked back at the man who was still a little out of it. She felt for the guy, but also felt Kudo's exasperation. "Yes!"

* * *

Back in the lobby, screaming people were still trying to get out. Firefighters were now rushing past, trying to get into the stairwell to get to the top floor. Kudo grabbed Aoko's arm and began moving towards the line of firefighters going towards the stairwell. Confused, she asked, "I thought you said he wouldn't be on the roof?"

"We're not going to the roof," Kudo said simply.

Once in the stairwell, Kudo fought against the warm bodies of the people moving against them to wrench open a door that said _Staff Only_. Aoko looked through it, finding a descending staircase that presumably led to the basement. Following Kudo down the stairs, she heard the door shut behind her and the air become thick with silence and nothingness.

It felt calm for the first time in a little while, Aoko decided. A dim light was flickering intermittently above them, the laminate floor was covered in scuff marks and a few decades' worth of grime and filth, and a smell permeated through the walls of reminding her of something musty but not exactly terrible. A long, pasty green-bricked hallway stretched out in front of them. A sign hung above a door at the end of the hall, and if Aoko squinted she could read it. _Security_.

The pair made their way quickly down the hall, before Kudo motioned for her to hang back as he peered carefully through a window in the door. The expression on her face was all she needed to summon her inner Nakamori.

"He's in there, isn't he!" It wasn't a question. "Is he okay?"

Kudo hushed her, before whispering back in a pressed voice. "Yes, but he's not alone."

Aoko crept closer to the door and forced Kudo to allow her to peer through the window as well. At least a dozen security guards were on the ground; presumably, hopefully, they were knocked out - she was actively ignoring the red liquid pooling around the bodies, actively ignoring the sheer _amount_ of liquid surrounding each body and the fact that they weren't moving. A flash of metal caught her eye. Kid was standing in full white regalia in the center of the room (how had she not seen him first?), aiming a gun at... Kid?

"We have to save Kid!" Aoko remarked in a hushed voice, looking to Kudo for ideas.

"How do you know we have to save Kid?" Kudo said, his cold, calculating eyes looking back at her. "For all we know, he could be the one with the gun. We have no way of telling who is who."

"Kudo- _meitantei_ ," Aoko seethed, letting extra venom sink into his title. "For your information, I know Kid very well and that is something he would never do."

"I want to believe that as well," Kudo said impartially. "But we have to consider every possibility. We can't rule possibilities out based on assumptions, no matter how impossible they may seem."

Aoko's jaw dropped with disbelief. Kudo was actually entertaining the thought that Kid - her Kid! - would point a gun at someone? She felt a pit in her stomach sink deeper and deeper until it finally exploded. "Then consider this possibility: get your third-rate detective ass out of my sight before I give you a reason to go missing for another couple of months, you thickheaded, birdbrained -"

Kudo seemed unbothered as she rattled off a few more choice words that came to mind from her colorful Nakamori vocabulary. He instead seemed to pick her up and move her to the side, out of the line of sight from the window, and put his hand on the doorknob. That movement left her speechless momentarily, before regaining her senses enough to ask. "Wait, what are you doing?"

"I want to hear what they're saying. So be quiet when I open the door, or you'll give us away."

The pair prayed as Kudo quietly opened the door a smidgen, hoping to high heavens that it wouldn't squeak. Finally they could hear what was being said.

The Kid with the gun had his back to them. The other Kid, across from them, had his hands up and a straight expression on his face. If Aoko didn't know better from growing up with Kaito and his remarks about magicians needing to keep a good Poker Face, she would have believed his calm demeanor. As it was, she didn't buy it.

"Why don't you put the gun down and we can talk about this," the Kid with his arms up was saying.

"No!" the Kid with the gun shrieked in a high voice, sounding hysterical. He sounded like he had been crying. "This is the only way you will ever notice me, Kid-sama!"

Aoko's mind raced. The Kid with the gun - who was quite clearly the imposter, Aoko knew - certainly had a high voice. It sounded almost - feminine? Was that Kid a girl?

"You have my full attention now," the real Kid said carefully, sounding like a hostage negotiator. "I'm listening."

The imposter's gun-wielding arm was shaking dangerously, still pointed directly at Kid. Aoko feared the gun would go off just by the random, jerking movements. The imposter spoke again. "Tell me you love me!"

"Tell you that I love you?" Kid asked incredulously. "I don't even know who you are!"

A bullet flew out wildly, whizzing past Kid and making a small hole through his cape. Aoko wasn't sure if that shot was missed on purpose. The imposter shouted, "I'm Kait0uKidsWife8795! From the website! The Kaitou Kid 1412 Fanclub Chat Room website! I messaged you every day and you never responded!"

Another bullet flew out, striking another spot in his cape. "I knew it was you, Kid-sama! But I know you're a busy guy, so I thought maybe you weren't checking your messages. So I hacked the site's servers and found your chat history. Do you know what I found?" Yet another bullet, this time whizzing through Kid's hat, letting a cloud of scarlet smoke puff out of the hole. "Do you know what I found?! I found you cheating on me! You were chatting with another girl!"

Kid backed up as he watched the gun steady in the imposter's arm, and aim more accurately at his chest. The bullet wasn't going to miss him the next time. His heels bumped into one of the bodies on the ground - the bodies, Aoko reminded herself, that were just sleeping, they were sound asleep, they would wake up at the end and laugh this all off -

A quiet sound brought Aoko back to where she was. She had been so entranced by the conversation that she had forgotten she was just feet away from where it was all happening. She looked over at Kudo, who had taken out his phone and was quickly tapping a message on his phone. He passed her the phone when he was done writing.

Do you have any idea what she's talking about?

Well, of course Aoko did. But she couldn't tell Kudo, could she? He was a detective, after all. And what she had done - her conversations, her meetings, her whole _relationship_ with Kaitou Kid - was incredibly illegal. Telling Kudo would be the same as turning herself in to her father. But - at the same time - if she didn't say - and Kid was in so much danger -

Yes. That's where I started talking to Kid. I think they're talking about me.

She passed the phone back to Kudo, who read it with an indiscernible expression. If he was going to haul her off to jail after this, she had no way of knowing. He tapped another message on the phone and handed it back to her.

Oh, definitely. You probably shouldn't be seen by them, then.

Kudo was right - that'd make the imposter go off the rails if she saw Aoko... well, more off the rails than she was currently. That imposter seemed to have booked a one way ticket aboard the Crazy Train to Crazy Town. Aoko tapped a message and gave the phone back to Kudo.

What can we do?

Kudo looked at the message for a moment, thinking. Aoko knew their options were limited. They didn't have any way to attack the imposter besides their bare hands and whatever Kudo might have on him (which was probably nothing, Aoko assumed). Although - even if they had something, she wasn't so sure it would be a good idea to startle the imposter right now. After all, a bullet was only one finger twitch away from lodging itself in Kid's chest. And as for letting the police handle the situation... this was too urgent to risk waiting for trained police to show up and defuse the situation. And she couldn't risk Kid getting caught, either, as much as it pained her to admit that.

Kudo put his phone away and motioned for her to get back into the hallway even more. She obliged, but only because she knew the consequences of the imposter seeing her. Confused by what Kudo was planning, she watched him silently. _Please let him have a good plan and please let that plan work_.

He swung open the door, and with all the obliviousness in the world, said, "Oh, um, excuse me, I was looking for the men's restroom."

 _God_ _dammit, Kudo-kun, you fucking idiot._

The world seemed to stop as Aoko stood pin-straight against the wall, unable to see what was happening in the room. She heard the imposter's voice choke out a confused "What?" followed by some scuffling footsteps, and then an even louder dense sound of commotion. Kudo had rushed into the room at this point, and was now out of her vantage point. More commotion ensued.

She felt, rather than heard, the unmistakeable vibration of a gun going off within the room.

Clamping her hands against her ears, she almost betrayed herself to look in the room. But she couldn't do that, she promised she wouldn't, but Kid could be hurt, or Kudo, or -

She shook her head, eyes welling up, and watched a trickle of crimson liquid run out of the doorway. No no no no. She couldn't think about that. She slunk down against the wall and held her head between her legs. She didn't want to be in that hallway anymore. She wished that she hadn't decided to attend the heist that night. She wished that she hadn't decided to go on that stupid website. She wanted everything to be gone. She wanted to be gone.

A hand on her shoulder startled her, and she peered upwards, not sure what to expect. The barrel of a gun in her face, perhaps?

Instead it was Kudo Shinichi's friendly face. "Come on, Nakamori-san. Let's get you out of here."

"But what about -" Her voice was choked. She felt like she was suffocating. "What about Kid?"

"He's alright. Let's just get you out of here," Kudo repeated. He helped her up and wrapped his arms around her, strong enough to keep her from looking in the room. Her eyes caught sight of his hands, which were stained with something dark red.

"Why won't you let me see?" Aoko asked, before landing on a horrible conclusion. "You're lying! He's -"

She couldn't bring herself to say it. She didn't want to believe it. She broke away from Kudo's grip, her stubborn Nakamori strength overpowering him. She ran to the doorway and looked in.

Kid was in the middle of the room, lying face down in a pool of blood. He looked like he had been crumpled and tossed aside. His suit was stained a horrible color, like he had swam through a sea of sangria. Her eyes found the gun, resting in the murky ocean of red, right beside his hat, right beside his red-stained hat that was floating in the liquid.

"No," she said. "No, no no -"

"Nakamori-san -" Kudo said from her left side, arms around her. "Kid is fine."

Her eyes landed on the bullet hole on the side of his head, still pouring out blood like a faucet.

"I'm right here," a calm voice came from her right side. "I'm alright."

She turned her head to see Kid standing beside her. Then, taking a step back as if she had seen a ghost, she swung her head between the two Kids. Both were wearing bloodied suits, both were missing their hats, both were -

"Aoko," Kid said. "Look at me."

She did. His face was covered in blood. His gloves, his monocle, his shoes, his pants, his knees especially - all blood-soaked and drenched. He smelled like he had bathed in a silverware drawer, or - or had been hanging out in a basement filled with iron pipes. It made her stomach flip over.

"Aoko," Kid repeated. "Aoko, I'm safe. It's over. I'm here. I'm safe. Aoko. It's okay."

She tore away from Kudo and grabbed Kid's jacket. Burrowing her face into his chest, she sobbed fiercely. "I was so scared for you!"

He froze for a moment, and Aoko felt her world stop. Her blood ran cold. What now?

She felt him wrap his arms around her protectively. He was warm. Wet with blood, but warm. "We're safe, Aoko."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I say this was gonna be a cute chapter? Oh? I did? Well whoops, I guess I lied! Sorry!
> 
> Anyway, please drop a review or two if you want. They always brighten up my day!


	18. No Use Crying Over Spilled Blood

They were drenched in blood. The three of them, drowning in that bleeding color of despair, shivering as the liquid cooled their cores.

Kid took a pile of folded clothes out of the lining of his suit jacket and placed them on the ground. He held one bloody tie-died shirt up. Aoko assumed Kid had been planning to use it as his disguise to leave the place. It looked like it had been a white office shirt.

"Can't use any of these, I guess," Kid muttered.

"What do we do now?"

"Wait for the cops. I already texted Hakuba," Kudo said, reciting the process almost mechanically. Aoko had forgotten he was a homicide detective and that he was used to this type of thing, even if she wasn't. "They'll take our statements and let us go - well, maybe just Nakamori-san and myself." He was looking at Kid. "They might have other things to discuss with you, though."

"I'm obviously not sticking around for that," Kid said nervously, putting his hands up in front of him.

Kudo only rolled his eyes. "I figured. But how do you plan on getting away? You don't have any disguises left."

"I don't?"

Kid disappeared in a cloud of smoke, leaving Aoko and Kudo coughing. When the fog dissipated, Kudo Shinichi was standing in his place - although his clothes were still heavily stained with streaks of blood. Aoko winced slightly as she looked at him, but marveled at how quickly he had been changed - and how closely he resembled Kudo himself. She had almost forgotten that she was dealing with the Master of Disguise himself. She wondered idly if Kaito would ever be able to disguise himself that well. She knew he often used masks to dress up as their classmates, but Kid looked like he had completely become possessed by Kudo's spirit. Would Kaito ever be that good?

Kudo, still dressed up as Kuroba Kaito as he had been all evening, didn't look impressed.

"Any half-witted detective would see right through that disguise - if that's even what you want to call it," Kudo critiqued. "The staining pattern reflects that the clothes were folded up when they were stained. Who would put on bloody clothes besides you?"

"At least I'm not standing in the middle of a crime scene in a bright white suit, top hat, and cape right now. You've got to admit it's something, at least."

Kudo peered back into the room where the blood-bath had occurred. "So what's our story, then? The three of us just happened to find this room? Together? Even though the building was being evacuated and Nakamori-san was supposed to be nowhere near this building -"

"That's your problem to figure out," Kid interrupted. "I told you to keep her away from here. That was the whole point of including you, don't you remember?"

"Hey!" Aoko said, pushing herself between the two and glaring at Kid. "I'm not some frail old woman who has to be protected! You didn't have to go so far as to have Kudo-kun babysit me all evening!"

"Yeah, well I should have known better than to pick on Kudo Shinichi of all people to act as your babysitter, anyway. Right, tantei-kun?"

Kudo huffed. "Oh, shut it. And Nakamori-san has a point, that she's more than capable to keep herself out of trouble, unlike some people -"

"We're going to go there? What about your _little incident_?" Kid drawled humorlessly. "I thought you would've learned a least a _little_ restraint -"

Aoko tuned the two out as they started to argue. They were like siblings, the way they bickered. _Or an old married couple_ , she snickered to herself. But it was nice, she knew, to have this little distraction, so that she wouldn't have to think about what she had just witnessed. Even if she hadn't directly seen it - the sounds, the vibrations, the smell, the taste all drummed against her mind and tried to squeeze her sanity out. She wasn't sure how she was going to sleep tonight. Scratch that - she wasn't sure how she was going to sleep _any_ night from now on.

She was shaken out of her reverie by a loud _BANG_ that sounded and reverberated through the hallway. A gun? Who was coming? She looked around, frantically searching for the source of the sound.

Footsteps - first a couple, then a couple dozen, then a couple hundred. Thundering towards them. They turned their heads towards the staircase to find a group of policemen running towards them.

"Aoko!" She heard a gruff male voice as the men swarmed past them to assess the situation in the room. The bloodbath. She felt someone grab hold of her and pull her in close. The smell of teakwood permeated the air around her, encasing her in the moment. A comforting smell - her father's cologne.

"Dad!" She cried into his shoulder, clutching on for dear life. Her father was here now and she could release the waterworks - truly now, without restraint. She was her father's little girl in this moment, and God had she been so scared. Only her father could make her feel safe. Not Kudo, not Kid. They could come close, with their friendly, reassuring smiles and their strong arms. But they weren't her father - her father, who had held her tight when she had a nightmare about her mother dying every day for three months after her funeral - her father, who had buffed the car without a word after she had crashed into a guardrail - her father, who had worried about her safety _that morning_ and had tried to keep her safe. Had tried, and succeeded. And failed, in a way. But that way wasn't one of the ways that mattered, to her at least.

* * *

They were escorted out of the basement and helped over to some ambulances, where EMTs were buzzing around treating peoples' injuries. Their statements were taken, they were given courtesy warming blankets, and were told to go home. Inspector Nakamori had milled around for a bit, but once he made sure the three of them were uninjured he excused himself to assist with the investigation. Aoko, for as much as she wanted to cling onto her father, understood completely: duty called. Someone had to make sense of the tragic mess that just occurred. Someone had to bring order back into the universe.

So it was again, the three of them, standing lonely on the street corner, wrapped in police blankets. Kid disguised as Kudo, Kudo disguised as Kaito, and Aoko playing the role of herself.

Kid coughed suddenly, then nodded his head to the left. "Pain in the ass incoming in 3... 2... -"

"I suppose I was right when I said Kudo Shinichi only deals with murder cases, wasn't I?" Hakuba said smugly as he approached.

"Oi, oi," Kudo said a little defensively, before being elbowed by Kid, who assumed a defensive tone himself, saying, "Hey, it's not like I tell people to kill each other when I'm around!"

"I'm sure," Hakuba said. Then something seemed to click in his head, causing him to blink and swing his head to look between Kudo and Kid. "Wait, you - two are -"

"Are what?" Kid asked with sweet innocence, seemingly oblivious to the obvious resemblance he shared with the detective next to him.

Hakuba glared at Kid. "That tone alone tells me you're Kid. I'm just curious how you roped Kudo Shinichi into this."

"I don't understand. I'm Kudo Shinichi," Kid insisted, then tacked on for good measure, "There's only one truth!"

Hakuba's eyes turned towards Kudo himself, who was looking absolutely disgraced by his counterpart's acting. "Is that so?"

"Well, yeah, ha ha ha," Kudo said, scratching his head. "Why are you asking me?"

"What's your name?"

"Err- Kuroba Kaito."

"Age?"

"Seventeen."

"Date of birth?"

"I don't need to tell you that!" Kudo retorted. Aoko found herself dumbstruck. That was the same rageful annoyance that Kaito always had when he argued with Hakuba. Guess Kudo was just a good actor!

Hakuba persisted. "What size -"

"Okay, that's enough," Kid said, interrupting. "Hakuba-kun, don't you have somewhere to be?"

"Don't you? I thought you'd be all over this murder case," Hakuba said, directing his questions at the real Kudo.

Kid replied, "I have another case to attend to. Besides, it would break the detective's code of honor to steal this case from you. You've claimed Kid for yourself - at least, that's how I've understood it."

"Well -" Hakuba started suspiciously, before thinking better of it. "You're right."

"Then shoo," Kid said, waving his hands and shooing him away in a very un-Kudo Shinichi way. Aoko assumed Kid was just taunting Hakuba at this point.

Hakuba huffed in resignation and seemed about ready to walk away. Suddenly, he shoved his hands in his pockets and said, nonchalantly, "Oh, before I go. Nice to meet you for the first time, Kudo Shinichi-tantei. And as for you, Kaitou Kid, if you really thought you were fooling anyone - the stains in those clothes? I would have thought better of you. I suppose your imperfections show you're just as human as the rest of us. Goodbye until tomorrow, Nakamori-chan, Kuroba."

The trio watched him disappear back into the building. A pompous freak returning to his natural habitat - Hell.

"He's fun at parties, isn't he?" Kudo finally said, to break the silence. Then, turning to Aoko, he said, "You're awfully silent. You feeling okay?"

Aoko's face turned red as she was called out for behavior she didn't realize she was committing. "I just - didn't know what to say."

"You didn't want to lie to Hakuba, did you?" Kid said, reading her mind effortlessly. "I know I've put you through a lot, Aoko. I don't want you to compromise your morals to protect me."

"I - I really wanted to," Aoko said, blushing a deep maroon. "I wanted to tell Hakuba off for acting like you guys were really who you are rather than who you said you are. I wanted to be part of it. But something inside of me - didn't want to, as well."

Kid nodded. "I understand."

She wasn't sure if he really understood, though. It wasn't just tonight. It was every other moment. The guilty feeling in her stomach when her dad asked who she's been texting. The nausea she had when Kid showed up at her window all those times. The stupid way she feels when she goes to bed at night and can only think about him.

"Wait, hold on," Kudo was looking at Kid incredulously. "So Nakamori-san here gets a choice over whether she wants to 'compromise her morals', but I get you breaking into my house in the middle of the day and coercing me into helping you commit grand larceny?"

"I didn't steal anything tonight," Kid pointed out.

"You stole that pill from me!"

"Oh, that?" Kid grinned mockingly. "What's it for, anyway? Some allergy medication or something?"

"Anyway, the deal's done. I helped you, so give it back!" Kudo demanded.

Kid plucked a small white capsule out of midair. Kudo reached for it, but Kid snatched it away at the last split second. He held it up to the moon, eyeing it like a jewel. "Like taking candy from a baby! You only need it in the morning, right?"

"That wasn't the deal!"

"Actually, I don't think I ever specified when I'd give it back. Just that I would." Kid winked. "As I always do."

Aoko had had enough of their childish antics. "Kid, just give it back to the poor guy!"

"In a little while. I promise." Kid put the pill back into some hidden pocket in his pants. "First, we need to have a talk."

"We're already talking!" Aoko said.

"No, like a serious sit-down talk. Let's go to a diner. There's got to be one nearby." His phone appeared in his hands. Aoko tried to ignore the rust-colored fingerprint smudges on the back of it but couldn't. The blood had really gotten everywhere, hadn't it? Kid spoke out loud. "There's the OK Diner a block away. Let's go there."

Kudo's shoulders sagged. "Fine. Whatever you want. As long as you promise to give me that pill back before two o'clock?"

A glance at her watch told her it was nearly midnight already. "Jeez, time flies..."

"On a thief's honor - yes. There's just some things we need to discuss before I release you back into the wild. Nothing too scary."

The three began making their way down the sidewalk. Aoko stopped suddenly, causing the two guys to stop and look back at her in confusion. She gaped at their obliviousness. "We can't go to a diner dressed like this!"

"Dressed like...?" the two of them started, before looking down at themselves and their blood-soaked garments. Ah yes, they certainly couldn't go to a diner in those clothes. They shouldn't even be walking around town looking like that, for that matter.

But then Kid grinned widely. "I already thought of that. Don't worry."

A car whipped around the corner and sped by at an insane speed. A duffel bag flew out of the window and landed at their feet. Kid unzipped it, took a bundle of fabric out, and handed it to Kudo. "Put this on."

"Was that your assistant?" Kudo said, eyeing the thief suspiciously. "He looked rather old."

"Don't let him hear you say that!" Kid laughed, before pulling out some more clothes and depositing them in Aoko's open arms. She juggled with the clothes, trying to make sense of what she was being given. An oversized hoodie... and a frilly pink dress?

"So, what, are we supposed to get dressed in the middle of the sidewalk?" Kudo asked.

Kid looked about ready to answer, but then peered over his shoulder. "I was going to say that even if you guys can't, I can - but I really can't, not with all these police officers here, at any rate."

"Let's go to the aquarium and change," Aoko offered. "It was empty when we were there earlier. I bet we could duck in, get dressed, and be done in less than five minutes."

A second passed. Maybe more.

A devious smile spread across Kudo's face, looking right at home as he was currently dressed as Kuroba. "I don't have a problem with that. Any objections, Kid?"

"Ah -um -" Kid looked a bit unsettled by something. "No problems here. Let's just be quick."

They ran into the aquarium. At the lobby, they split up, with Aoko heading into the women's restroom and the guys heading into the men's restroom. Once alone, Aoko peered into the big mirror stretching in front of the five sinks. Her face looked had a few streaks of rusty red thrown across it, probably from her hands as she rubbed her eyes and from Kid's jacket when she hugged him earlier. Compared to the boys, she didn't look that bad - which wasn't too surprising, considering how little interaction she had had with - the room. The bloodbath. She frowned, tears threatening to fall once more. It was easier to just call it the Room.

She changed quickly, feeling insecure about wearing such a light dress when she didn't have the proper undergarments on. A part of her found humor in that, that she was able to care about all her lumps and bumps and curves (or lack there of) that were in all the wrong spots. To care about the somewhat unshaved legs. She hadn't expected to be showing off her calves, and her razor was so dull, and - and her bra straps, poking out from either side of the dress straps, seemed to poke her as if to say, _Hey, you'll always be the same_. Thankfully, whoever Kid's accomplice was - and it was probably Jii, now that Aoko reflected - had been courteous enough to throw in the hoodie. It wouldn't help much about the leg hair situation but it would help her feel a little less exposed on top. She slipped it on and gave herself a once over before promptly doubling over in laughter.

"I look ridiculous!"

She walked back out to the lobby to find the two guys, now dressed in clean clothes, waiting for her. Surprisingly, Kudo and Kid still seemed to be sticking to their disguises, and they seemed to be silently tolerating each others' presence, which Aoko was grateful for. She didn't feel like listening to the two of them arguing with each other. Not right now. She just wanted some peace and quiet now.

"Ready to go?" Kid asked as soon as she came out of the restroom. He seemed to be keeping his eyes trained on the floor, only looking up to acknowledge her approaching. He looked - apprehensive?

"You're certainly excited to get out of this place," Kudo commented playfully. "Not a fan of fish?"

"No, I just want to get to the diner," Kid replied, denying Kudo's accusation with perhaps more force than necessary, but not removing his gaze from the ground.

Aoko was no idiot. Something was bothering Kid about this place. Unlike Kudo, though, she wasn't about to make some joke about him being scared of the fish there. After all, the pure thought of it was laughable - Aoko only ever met one person who was scared of fish and it was Kaito. Nobody else was weird enough to have a fear like that, let alone Kid. Kid was... She stopped herself there. Kid wasn't some imaginary character. He was human. He had flesh and blood, and feelings, _so many feelings_ , and he had people he cared about like his mother and Jii and Aoko hoped herself as well. But with all those came human worries like death and fear. Scary thoughts that everyone had - afflicted Kaitou Kid as well. It was strange enough that she had a hard time wrapping her brain around that. Kaitou Kid wasn't an untouchable spirit. He was a person, through and through.

Which led her back to his discomfort about the aquarium. Perhaps he was worried about the police? After all, the block was absolutely infested with them - the high-rise across the street had, after all, just exploded into a giant fireball. Maybe that's all it was. Kid was just worried about the cops.

"Let's just get going, then," Aoko said, hoping to hurry the three of them out of the place that was making Kid uncomfortable for some mysterious reason that she absolutely did not need to know. Absolutely not. But... _It wouldn't hurt to just ask about it later._

And under the full moon, the sky glowing red from the residual fires still breaking out of the high-rise, the trio left the aquarium and made their way quickly to the diner. Somewhere, far away, a tall clock tower tolled.

Midnight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay? This chapter kind of just happened. I wanted to get to the diner conversation but there were some loose ends I had to tie up before getting to that so...
> 
> Anywayyy, update in my life: I turned 21! I got a job! I'm actually super excited but scared at the same time. It's super strange writing this story, knowing I started it in junior high, and that now I'm like... responsible... and stuff. Like, I'm almost a full-fledged nurse. I give people medications and do other important things. I don't know if anyone gets what I'm talking about.
> 
> Anyway - please review! I love to hear your voices!


	19. The OK Diner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a very difficult chapter to write, for plot and personal reasons. I lost a friend to suicide last month (some time after the previous chapter was posted), so I started writing this chapter in an effort to organize and understand my thoughts. Somehow, through the weird machinations of this world, it was just pure coincidence that the characters in this story were dealing with the fallout of a suicide at the same time as I was. It really do be like that sometimes, I guess. Anyway, this chapter was too hard to write in the manner I usually do (that is, in one sitting and without any editing whatsoever) so the tone and flow might feel a little jerky. I tried my best guys, I really did.
> 
> Anyway, as for the plot... just let it follow the course it's going in. This story has a mind of its own, and if we were looking for expert writing to fill in every single plot hole, we wouldn't be this far in on a story called Kaitou Kid 1412 Fanclub Chat Room, now would we? Sorry I suck lmao

"So what did you want us to talk about?" Kudo asked as he handed the menus over to Aoko and Kid. They were seated at a corner booth in the OK Diner, with Kid and Kudo seated on one bench (Kid obviously taking the aisle seat) and Aoko across from them. A few crumbs sat on the table between them, and a collection of smudged water glasses were placed neatly in the center of the table.

Kid took the menu and started lazily flipping through it, seemingly ignoring the question. "Oh, a chocolate milkshake sounds really good right about now..."

"Oi, oi, oi," Kudo said, rolling his eyes before plucking the menu back out of Kid's hands. "My mistake for giving that to you before letting you answer."

Kid groaned. "At least let a guy look at the cheesecake selection before having an important conversation!"

Aoko snapped her fingers in front of Kid's face. She was growing weary of the night and just wanted to curl up in her own bed. It had been a long day and she was ready for it to just be over. "Come on, Kid! I'm tired and I want to go home!"

"Fine, fine." Kid waved the waitress over and peered over at Aoko. "So what do you want?"

"Nothing, I'm good," she said, shaking her head in annoyance.

He raised an eyebrow. "You sure...? I'm paying..."

She felt a vein throb in her head. Her poor blood pressure. "Holy J- are you being serious right now? No, I don't want anything! Just hurry up!"

"Okay, okay," Kid said, then turned to Kudo. "What about you? I'm not paying for you, just to be clear."

Kudo placed his head on the table and mumbled out. "Just order already. You're the only one that wants anything."

Kid sighed and looked back at the waitress. He shrugged his shoulders for perhaps longer than he should have, before telling her, "Alright then, I'm going to have one large chocolate milkshake. No straw, please." He gestured at Aoko. "She'll have a large strawberry milkshake." He finally pointed at Kudo. "He'll have one black coffee."

The waitress wrote the order down, took the menus, and left. Kid looked back at the table to find two angry people glaring at him. They seethed, "We said we didn't want anything."

"Yeah, but it'd be rude for me to eat in front of you guys." Kid explained simply.

"How'd you know I like strawberry milkshakes?" Aoko ventured. After all, how did he know? It wasn't exactly a secret, but it wasn't something she had ever told him.

"It's - because I'm psychic!" Kid announced confidently.

Kudo groaned and wrapped his arms around his head, still planted on the table. "Just hurry up and tell us whatever it was you needed to tell us. I have a headache."

Kid sighed and looked around the diner. It was quiet, and the booths around them were empty. Perfect for a private conversation. "Well, obviously we need to unpack some of the things that happened tonight."

"No, we don't," Kudo yawned. "Nakamori-san didn't see anything happen, and I'm used to this from my line of work. So if you were worried about us, don't be. Right, Nakamori-san?"

"Right," Aoko agreed hesitantly. She wasn't so sure she was going to sleep well that night, but it wasn't something Kid had to stress over. She'd be fine eventually. Hopefully.

"Actually," Kid said. "I was... talking about myself. I'm not - I'm not really used to seeing - things - like - that."

"Oh," Kudo said, straightening up and turning his body to look at Kid better. Aoko's full attention was on him, as well.

"I just - I've always had a lot of control over these things." Kid was playing with the condensation on his smudged water glass, leaning over the table with his chin sitting like lead in his hand. "I don't like it when people get hurt at my heists. And sometimes they do, and it makes me upset, because I feel like I could have stopped them from getting hurt. But usually I can always go home and tell myself I'm not responsible for what happened, and that I'm not guilty. I mean, I am guilty of other things but not that. But - but when something like this happens - I mean - _that girl_ _literally killed herself because of me_." He let the quiet words sit in the air for a moment. "It's different. I feel like it's my fault. I could have done something to stop her. And saying it out loud, I know it sounds ridiculous. But at the same time - how can it be anything except my fault?"

They sat in silence for a long time. The waitress came back and placed their drinks in front of them before leaving. Kid was lost in thought and didn't even spare a passing glance at the straw that had been brought along with this order despite his request.

"Well," Kudo began after much contemplation. "I know you're going to argue with me on this, but you shouldn't blame yourself. You're not responsible for her actions."

"I feel like I am, though. I should have stopped her or talked her down. I should gotten to the gun quicker once I knocked it out of her hand. I shouldn't have even knocked it out of her hand, I should have -"

"We both reached for the gun, Kid. You _and_ me. By your logic, we both had the potential to stop her. Does that make it our fault that we weren't able to defy the laws of nature?"

"That's what I do, though," Kid muttered. "People come to see me because I can do super-human things. I can make the impossible possible."

"But you're still just a human," Aoko countered. "All your tricks are exactly that: tricks. You can't expect yourself to actually perform miracles."

Kid looked over at the rest of the diner. A hostess was counting the dollar bills in the cash register and a waitress was taking some couple's order. Somewhere, coffee was pouring out of a percolator. "I just feel like I should have been able to. Or that I shouldn't have made the situation to begin with."

"Are you talking about not being Kid?" Kudo asked. "Because that's the most stupid thing you've said all evening. Obviously, yes, theft is a crime - but you can't honestly believe that you are responsible for that girl taking her own life because you woke up one morning and decided to start being Kaitou Kid, as dumb as that decision might be in its own right."

"Aren't I responsible, though? If Kaitou Kid never existed, she wouldn't have been obsessed with me, and she wouldn't have felt the need to -"

"She was an unstable person. If she didn't do what she did tonight, she might have done something else. Maybe not to you, but to someone else."

"We can't be the judge of that."

"Yes, we can," Kudo persisted. "Somebody that can kill that many people just to have the chance of meeting you is literally the definition of unstable. It doesn't take a detective to deduce that outcome. There is nothing you could have done differently. So, sure, maybe she wouldn't have gone all stalker-crazy on _you_ , per se, but she still would have been one screw away from going off the rails."

Kid sipped on his milkshake finally, hands white as ever. Aoko almost thought he was still wearing his gloves, if it weren't for his blue fingertips. After a thoughtful moment, he responded. "I believe you, but I don't. I know it's crazy. Like I said before, the logical part of me understands - the other part doesn't." He took a long slurp, a contemplative expression on his face. At the end, he said, "I just feel like I could have handled the situation differently. I feel like that's where my responsibility to her was."

"You know," Kudo began, somewhat slowly, as if he wasn't sure how he wanted to say it, "I told Hattori once that if a detective corners a suspect with his deductions and the suspect consequently kills himself, then that detective is no better than a murderer himself. And I still think that's true, but in this case - there was no deduction. There was no time to think. You were in danger and I did what I had to do to stop her from shooting you. I'm the one who scared her. I caught her off guard so you'd have time to disarm her. I knew you'd be able to. I just didn't know where the gun would go. I'd hoped we'd be able to get it away from her - but that was all I could do. I could only hope." Kudo looked at Kid, straight on. "I have no regrets about the actions I took because I know they saved your life."

"At the cost of hers."

"I couldn't know that at the time. I was almost one hundred percent certain I could save your life if I intervened. If I didn't intervene... well, it wasn't looking good for you, I'm going to be honest. I'm not sure if you had a trick up your sleeve - although, I'm sure you would have used it before allowing fifteen security guards to be killed - but I couldn't take that chance. And as for the girl, I knew there was a chance for her to hurt herself once facing imminent capture. I knew by saving your life I would be risking hers. I knew that. But I still opted to intervene and safe your life."

"Why?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Aoko found herself answering, rather than Kudo. Her voice was soft. "That girl would have been at risk to kill herself regardless of whether you were dead or alive. Who knows what she would have done after you were dead? So rather than having two dead -" she trailed off. She could hardly say it. When Kudo explained it, it was logical and comprehensible, but when the words were in her mouth, getting all jumbled up, it seemed somehow inhumane. Unreal... but at the same time so very real.

"I had a better chance at saving your life than hers, simply put," Kudo concluded. "Do I wish I could have changed what I did so the outcome would have been better? Certainly. Did I know what was going to happen as a result of my actions, though? Absolutely not. So can I hold my past actions against myself, when all I was doing was following utilitarian theory?"

"Utilitarian?" Aoko questioned. It sounded familiar. Perhaps from class?

"Oh, don't you know the trolley problem?" Kudo asked her. She shook her head.

"Imagine an out of control trolley is going to kill five people on a track. If you pull a lever, you can divert the trolley onto another railway - the only issue is, there's still one person on that track. What do you do?"

"I..." Aoko trailed off. "I don't know."

Kid answered before Kudo. "Utilitarianism says to pull the lever, since it perceives saving five lives at the cost of one to be the best option. Conversely, Deontology and Kantianism say not to, as making the conscious decision to kill one person, even to save five, is still murder and is thus morally wrong."

Kudo sipped his coffee before flashing a 'wow I'm surprised this is actually good' face. Once Kid finished his explanation, he tacked on, "The trolley problem can be applied to this case, too. Me intervening was the same as me pulling the lever."

"I still don't understand, though," Kid shook his head. "You say it's comparable to the trolley problem, but it's not. This isn't five lives at the cost of one. This is one life at the cost of another. How can that be justified?"

"Because her death wasn't certain in either scenario. Yours was."

That seemed to hit Kid like a pound of bricks. Aoko watched as he shut down and retreated inwards. Perhaps he had never been faced with his own mortality before?

"Kid," she said in a soothing voice. "Either way, it's over now. We can't change the past."

"I wish I could."

"But you can't," Kudo reaffirmed. "The only thing you can do now is move on. You can dwell on it, you can feel bad about it, hell, you can even blame yourself for it - but you still have to move on and keep going. You owe that to yourself."

Kid's milkshake seemed to have melted completely during the conversation. It looked like ice cream soup.

"Nobody's saying you have to get over it right now," Kudo added. "And nobody's expecting you to, either. But we're both here for you."

Kid stared at the milkshake with cold eyes. Aoko wondered if he had freezing powers that could solidify his milkshake some more now that it was melted. Finally, after a long, quiet silence, he muttered. "Thank you."

"Any time."

Kudo looked at Aoko with a question in his eyes. She tried to guess what it was but couldn't. He gave up on their telepathic conversation and decided to come out with it bluntly. "So I hate to be the bad guy, but is there anything else you wanted to discuss while we're here? After all, it is getting quite late..."

Kid let out his first chuckle in a while. "Where do you need to be going so late at night, tantei-kun? And, I hope you haven't forgotten that I have you reserved until 2 AM - as per your request, after all."

A groan. "Then out with it."

With that, the conversation suddenly seemed to be taking a much less somber tone. Kid grinned at Kudo. "Well, I take it you've figured out my identity by now."

"I have," Kudo said, uncertain where the thief was going with that statement.

Aoko, for her part, was confused. She had remembered Kudo announcing he'd figured out Kid's identity, but he had done it so quickly with so little evidence that she hadn't followed his train of thought and hadn't come upon the same conclusion as him. But perhaps - perhaps her research from earlier had yielded the same results?

"As have I," Aoko added, with a note of distinction. Time to prove to Kid that she could be just as smart as Kudo Shinichi, the Great Detective of the East.

"Ehh?" Kid asked, eyes boggling and face going white. "You - Aoko - what? When did you -? Why didn't you say so earlier?"

Aoko crossed her arms and spoke her deduction with confidence. "It was clear after you told me that there was a Kid before you. I knew there was only one magician who'd have the skill to be Kid and who had died around the time the first Kid disappeared: Kuroba Toichi. So, logically, I connected the dots to the obvious successor."

Kudo seemed surprised by her prowess, as did Kid, who looked like he was positively _going to be sick_. In a weak voice, he choked out, "And - that was...?"

"Kuroba Toichi's star pupil: Kazumi Sanada."

An indiscernible expression passed over Kid's face. His Poker Face, Aoko knew.

"Well, I am right, aren't I?" Aoko asked.

Kudo let out a loud laugh. "No, you are wrong. Like, so, so, _so_ , wrong. I'm sorry Nakamori-san but you are just way off the mark on that one. Whew."

"Damn it, tantei-kun," Kid laughed. "I was trying to make up my mind if I wanted to run with that. Guess you made the decision for me. Thanks, I guess."

Aoko felt her face blush a thousand shades redder than ever before. She was wrong?! Then all that investigative work, all those clues... for nothing? Had Chikage-san lied to her? Was everything she thought she knew about Kid a lie? Was Jii even his accomplice or was she wrong about that too?

"But - but I spoke to Chikage-san -"

"You did what now?" Kid sobered quickly and stopped laughing. He ventured, carefully, "What'd she say?"

"She confirmed that Toichi-ojisan was the first Kid, but she didn't tell me anything related to your identity. I just figured the obvious choice would be for you to be Kazumi Sanada."

"Well, he's definitely not," Kudo said, still giggling like a schoolgirl. "He's -"

Kid's hands went over Kudo's mouth in an instant. "Don't you dare, tantei-kun! Or I'll make you pay - _dearly_."

Kudo batted the thief's hands away, then straightened his shirt after the attack. He eyed the thief carefully. "You know... I'm not really sure what you thought was going to happen after tonight. I mean, I am a detective after all. It's my job to solve crimes..."

 _And apprehend criminals_ , Aoko tacked on in her mind. Suddenly the air seemed to sit heavier in her lungs.

"Well, I hoped we could have a stalemate of sorts," Kid stated. "You know my secret identity, I know yours... what more is there to say?"

Aoko coughed. "Secret identity?"

Kid waved her away. "Don't worry about it."

"The difference between us knowing each others' true identities is that you're a criminal," Kudo stated easily. "I have an obligation to the public to bring you in."

Kid narrowed his eyes. "You're not really going to make me resort to blackmailing you, are you?"

"B-blackmail?" Kudo sounded like he was caught off guard.

"I mean... yeah..." Kid snapped his fingers and the capsule from earlier appeared between his fingers. "I could just not give this back to you, and then the problem's solved. Nobody will listen to you without this, after all. And it's not like the amazing Sleeping Kogoro will help you this time."

Aoko tried to find a line in the conversation for her to follow. Something, anything, that made the tiniest bit of sense. But there was nothing, so she kept listening intently, eyes bouncing between the two identical faces as they spoke.

Kudo mused for a bit, staring at Aoko intently. Still staring at her - she was starting to feel a little self conscious, though - he said to Kid, "How about I tell your girlfriend your identity?"

"How about I tell your 'Neechan' yours?"

A twitch. "And how would you do that? Can't exactly dress up as me to tell her that, now can you?" Kudo questioned confidently, but there was an underlying note of panic in his voice. It sounded like he really didn't want his Neechan, whoever she was, to know his identity. "And I know she wouldn't believe some stranger off the street."

"Maybe she would," Kid said. "Do you want to take that chance?"

"You wouldn't d-" Kudo suddenly stopped talking and grabbed his chest. He was sweating profusely and looking considerably paler than a moment ago.

Aoko leaned in to look at him closer. "Kudo-kun, are you alright?"

"Give me the pill, Kid!" he said, reaching for the capsule in Kid's hand.

Kid held it far out of reach from Kudo. "Sorry, no can do!"

Aoko's full attention swung back to Kid. He was really not going to give Kudo that pill? She had no idea what it was for, but for him to look that awful and to look like he was in that much pain... "Kid, cut it out! Give it to him! Stop being an asshole!"

"No, you don't understand. I really can't," Kid said, still fighting off Kudo's weak attempts to reach for the pill. "That creepy little girl told me not to let him take this until six hours after it wears off, otherwise he'll build up a resistance."

"What?!" Aoko asked, still just as confused as before.

"You spoke to her?!" Kudo asked incredulously, somehow finding comprehension in Kid's words where Aoko did not. "What, did she give that to you?"

"Only after I asked. And she owed me - you know, for the Bell Tree Express. Remember that, tantei-kun? Kind of a jerk move, wasn't that?"

"I knew you were capable of saving your skin, or I wouldn't have set you up like that," Kudo protested through pants. He sounded terrible. "And I thought it'd make us even after you tasered me."

Kid rolled his eyes. "It was low voltage, get over it."

"It knocked me out!"

"Big deal, you've knocked out every person in a fifty mile radius with that watch of yours," Kid said. He snapped his fingers and the pill disappeared. "No pill for you!"

Kudo seemed to have an attack of sorts and grabbed at his heart, slinking against the booth bench. Sweat was rolling down his face like a tidal wave had crashed into him. Through clenched teeth, he choked out, "Well, at least let me leave, then! You know I can't - very - well -"

Kid was quiet for a beat, presumably contemplating the situation at hand. "Do you promise not to say a word?"

"Of course - not," Kudo grunted. "I'm a - detective - after all."

"Then you're staying put, right here," Kid said, crossing his arms.

Another attack overcame Kudo. He let out an torturous, agonizing scream at the top of his lungs, before passing out and falling face first onto the table. Everything in the diner clambered to a dead silence at that moment, and the diners at the other tables turned to look at them. Kid, quick thinking as ever, poked his head out of the booth, and with an apologetic wave, dismissed their concerns, saying, "Ooooh, this milkshake is just so good I had to scream about it! ARRRGHHHHHHH!"

He whipped back around to come face to face with a seething Aoko. "What the fuck?!"

"He's going to be fine, don't worry," Kid said, examining the unconscious teen next to him. He seemed unsure, however.

"Based on the conversation you guys were having, is this - normal? For him?" Aoko asked.

"I think?" Kid pressed the back of his hand against Kudo's forehead. "Jeez, he's burning up..."

"What do you mean, ' _I think_ '?" Aoko shouted. A lone diner turned his head, but his gaze lingered for less than a second before returning to his business. Apparently the diner was growing accustomed to their booth's outbursts.

Kid picked up the detective's limp wrist and held his fingers on it, checking for a pulse. "I mean, his creepy friend mentioned something like this would happen, but I'm not sure if this is what she -"

He was interrupted by a sizzling sound coming from the Kudo's body. He was still writhing, slightly, despite being unconscious. To Aoko, it was very disturbing to watch, what with him still dressed up as Kaito. It was almost as if she was watching Kaito get tortured. Finally a cloud of steam rose up from under his shirt collar and slowly, before their eyes -

Kudo shrunk.

"What the fuck," Aoko commented, once again. She lifted her eyes briefly to Kid's, and asked, yet again, _"What the fuck?"_

"That was -" Kid said with concern, eyebrows flying fifty feet in the air, "- not quite what I was expecting. Hell, I knew what to expect and I still wasn't expecting that."

"Is this related to that pill?" Aoko asked. Then, peering at Kudo further... "Wait, why does he look so familiar?"

"Um," Kid mumbled.

"Is Kudo-kun actually the Kid Killer, Edogawa Conan?"

"Jeez, Aoko, keep your voice down," he hushed her. "And yes, he is."

"What? How?"

Kudo - Conan - stirred and sat up slowly, as if waking from a dream. "Where am I?"

"Welcome back, tantei-kun," Kid said, rather hesitantly.

Aoko watched Conan look down at his shrunken body, now swimming in Kaito's clothes. "Ehhh?" His head shot up and with horrified eyes he looked at Aoko. "You - you - saw -"

"It's alright, Aoko won't tell anyone," Kid said, realizing the other two were too speechless to contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. Somehow, in the back of her mind, Aoko found it funny that Kid was playing peacemaker for a crisis he created.

"That's not the issue here!" Conan said in a severe tone, apparently following the same thought process as Aoko but finding it markedly less funny than she. "You just put everyone in this diner in great danger, Kid!"

"And how exactly did I do that? Is Neechan going to come and kick our butts after you finally tell her and she finds out we knew who you were? That doesn't make much sense."

"Idiot, did you think I was keeping my identity a secret just because I was afraid Ran would yell at me?" Conan berated the thief, an icy fear biting through his words. "This is a matter of life and death!"

"Big whoop, I eat matters of life and death for breakfast," Kid said dismissively.

Aoko was a little concerned, though. She didn't want to be mixed in with whatever great danger Conan was talking about. One dangerous situation was enough for her that night. "What do you mean, Edogawa-kun - err, Kudo-kun?"

"Call me Edogawa Conan when I look like this," Conan said sharply. "And I can't even tell you two about the danger, otherwise I'd be putting you in even more danger!"

"Pshh," Kid said. "As if my life could get any more dangerous."

"Mine could," Aoko muttered, before clapping her hands over her mouth as two pairs of blue eyes flew to her. Her worried thoughts were supposed to stay as they were: thoughts.

Kid's face filled with shock, then realization, and then, slowly, too slowly, regret. "Aoko - oh, jeez, Aoko, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to get you caught up in all this tonight."

"Why couldn't you have let him go home?" Aoko asked quietly, tears threatening to fall. So was that it? Was she just speaking her thoughts now? "Why are you involving me in this?"

Surprisingly, the thief couldn't seem to come up with a single good response.

Conan aimed an angry glare at the thief. "At least I have enough sense not to endanger the people I care about."

"Well, it's not like we know what danger you're talking about anyway," Kid defended. "How could I know how dangerous this is if you won't tell us?"

"Idiot!" Conan said. "You both have targets on your backs now for simply _knowing_ about even this!"

"Wait, what?" Kid asked, paling considerably. "I didn't think it was that serious!"

Aoko's face was just as white as Kid's, and her mind was running a mile a minute. Luckily, she wasn't getting bogged down by trying to deny the danger she was now apparently in. She believed Kudo/Conan if he believed they were in danger. But just what was the danger? Might as well ask... "What danger are we talking about here?"

"I can't tell you," Conan said darkly. "You'd be in even more danger if you knew."

"Does this have to do with the Bell Tree Express?"

Conan didn't say a word to that.

"What the hell, tantei-kun?" Kid said nervously. "Those guys are so dangerous! Why the hell wouldn't you tell me about this sooner?!"

"You didn't need to know!"

"Okay, wait a minute." Kid said. He put his hands on the table and took a slow, careful breath. "So. Your brilliant detective brain decided that I was absolutely fine fending those guys off for you by myself and literally standing at gunpoint in front of them, but dare I ask for a little clarification, suddenly it's none of my business? They blew up a train, tantei-kun! They could've blown _me_ up!"

"But they didn't," Conan pointed out simply.

"Yeah, because I had my hang-glider!"

Conan nodded. "I knew you'd be prepared."

Kid let out an absurdly quiet, strangled scream in frustration. "So you just expected me to blindly help you fight these guys? Really?"

"Oi, oi," Conan said, rolling his eyes. "I didn't want to involve you in the first place. But as for tonight - even if I were to tell you anything about the situation, I wouldn't have ever wanted Nakamori-san involved in this."

"Well, I'm involved now," Aoko said, waving a hand to remind the boys that she was still there. "And if the situation is as dangerous as you guys are saying... I agree with Kid, I think we deserve to know what we just got ourselves into."

"See, tantei-kun? I think you owe us an explanation," Kid said.

Conan sighed and leaned back in the booth. It looked like he had run out of arguments and was cornered at the end of the maze he had constructed. "Fine. But I can't tell you guys anything here. We need somewhere much more private."

"Where can we go?" Kid asked.

"Why not your house?" Conan asked innocently. Aoko blinked in amazement at his acting skills. He was really good at acting like the naive little kid he looked like. Too bad the two people he was performing for at the moment saw right through his act - right down to that sharp, piercing intensity hidden behind his playful tone. Kudo Shinichi, child or not, was not a force to be dismissed.

" _Absolutely_ not," Kid said immediately.

"Well, my house is occupied right now," Conan said. "And I don't want to have to explain why I'm talking to you two to Haibara and the Professor right now."

Kid chuckled. For some reason, Aoko equated his laugh with winter bells. He said, "No offense, tantei-kun, but talking to that creepy little girl is the last thing I want to do right now."

"I think she'll love it if I tell her you said that." Conan then looked towards Aoko thoughtfully. "Anyway, I assume we can't go to your house because of your father."

She nodded in agreement. And besides - Kid had already been in her house once too many times today. It wasn't that she didn't want him around, it just jolted the hell out of her nervous system and put her on high alert whenever he was in her house. The fear of being found out was absolutely too much.

"So that leaves only your place," Conan said, returning his cold gaze to Kid's eyes.

Kid returned his look as best as he could. Aoko almost laughed at his effort to seem intimidating and serious - he looked constipated! "I already said no."

"Then I won't tell you guys anything." Conan said, crossing his arms. "It's just not safe to converse about this in public."

Aoko wracked her brain for any other location they could go to where they wouldn't be disturbed. The school? The night janitor might overhear. Her house? Already nixed, for obvious reasons - including, most notably, her father's sole presence. The park by her house? Probably full of teen delinquents. She looked at Kid and willed him to have more success than her coming up with a private location for their discussion.

"Well - I can't," Kid said, scratching his head. "I don't know of any places that would be private that I would trust having you two in. Like. I can't exactly have you two - you, especially, tantei-kun - snooping around my hide-out."

"Kid," Conan said suddenly, a wide grin spreading across his face. "You know, if you bring me to your hide-out, I will _definitely_ snoop around. I can't even promise that I'll try not to."

Kid nodded at the rather obvious statement. "Yeah, I know. Which is why I can't -"

"But if you let me see your hide-out, I _promise_ I won't tell anyone your identity."

The air seemed to be sucked out of the room. Kid stared, open-mouthed, at Conan, who was still grinning as widely as before. "What's the catch? And what's with the change of heart?"

"Seeing the mysterious Kaitou Kid's lair?" Conan exclaimed, giddy as a - well, child - in a candy store. "Who could pass up the opportunity to see that?"

Aoko had to admit she was intrigued, as well. She decided to stay quiet and let Conan do the convincing, as it seemed her had the most leverage at the moment and was doing a good job of convincing Kid already.

"I - I can't -" Kid stumbled around, trying to find the words to put together to tell them exactly _why_ he couldn't have them see his hide-out. Or, as Conan had aptly called it, his _lair_.

"Of course you can," Conan said. "If we move this conversation there, I'll tell you about the Bell Tree Express."

"And you won't tell anyone my identity?" Kid questioned suspiciously. It didn't seem like a fair trade-off. "What will you get in exchange?"

"Like I said, who could pass up the opportunity to see Kid's home base? I'll definitely snoop around the place," Conan explained. "But the ultimate deal is that I won't tell anyone your identity if you don't tell anyone mine."

"That seems awfully unlike you, though," Kid said, still confused about the proposition. "How can you be saying that you won't be trying to catch me anymore?"

Conan held up one finger and tsk'd slowly. "I never said I'd give up on chasing you. I'm going to catch you one day, fair and square. And on that day, I'll unmask you and show everyone who you really are."

Kid smiled at long last, finally catching on. "Sounds like a fair deal to me, then."

As much as watching the two strike a deal with each other was entertaining, Aoko couldn't help but think they were getting a bit ahead of themselves. How was Kid planning on bringing them all to his lair? She coughed once, interrupting the flow of their conversation. "Um, so how are we going to get to your lair, Kid?"

"We'll walk there, obviously," Kid said simply. Aoko knew better. She knew him too well - he had something up his sleeve. A glance at Conan showed he was equally suspicious.

"Let's go, then," Aoko said warily.

And go they did. They paid their bill - and contrary to Kid's original declaration, he did pay for the three of them - and left the diner. For as long as they had sat there talking, once they had their minds made up as to where to go for their private conversation, they were rather fast moving. Down the sidewalk they walked, going in some direction that sparked Aoko with some mystical excitement as she realized they were headed in the direction of Kid's _secret lair_. Kid was beside her, and his hand was warm in hers as they strode along. Conan marched behind them in his too-big-for-him clothes, his piercing blue eyes watching Kid and her like a hawk. He was probably convinced Kid was going to pull some funny business. Aoko didn't blame him. She had the same thought.

A car whizzed by them, letting out a cloud of smoke as its wheels screeched against the pavement. Its exhaust cloud traveled up to her nose, its strong scent somehow lulling her mind into a fog. Suddenly she felt a little groggy. What time was it again - two in the morning? Much too late for her to be awake, at any rate. Blinking tired eyes over at Kid, who was walking beside her, she felt him squeeze her hand and they stopped walking. She wasn't even angry to see he had a gas mask pulled over his face. Turning around to check on the shrunken detective, she found that Conan was already fast asleep on the pavement.

Letting out a huge yawn, she fell against Kid's body as she let the sleepiness overtake her. Perhaps a nap was just the thing she needed right now. The last thing she saw before drifting off into the land of dreams was Kid's arms wrap around her, lowering her body slowly to the sidewalk pavement. And then -

Darkness.


	20. Nice Dream

_They stood in a garden that he had planted for her behind her father's house. Lilies, lilacs, rhododendrons, and orchids sprouted from every direction, filling the air with their floral fragrances. The sun was overhead and strong but his tall white tophat was casting her face in cool darkness. So close to him now, she could almost see his face. He took the monocle off as he moved closer, leaning in for a kiss, and she stared at his face fully for the first time, unable to focus on the blurry features. When had her vision become so fuzzy-?_

_And suddenly they were out on a small boat on a windy day. Somehow they were edging into an old forgotten memory she wasn't quite sure was even hers. He was rowing the boat with a silent ease, and she had his silk cape and coat wrapped around her to keep her warm. It was one of those days that she had forgotten to wear a jacket and was suffering the consequences. She pulled the cape tighter around her as a faint, chilly breeze blew by, stronger than the last. She looked out over the ocean to see a blue expanse that went on for miles and miles. Turning back to him, she found him reaching out his hand to hold her chin. She leaned over to try to kiss him once more, when suddenly a strong gust of wind overtook the boat and flipped it into the rocky, black waves below._

_"Kid!" she screamed._

_He was still on the boat, which was now somehow righted and floating further and further away. He raised a hand to wave and smiled at her with gentle eyes. The smile never reached his mouth._

_"Kid!" she shouted again, gurgling as her mouth filled with water. "Help me!"_

_"I can't go in the water," he answered, shaking his head sadly. "I don't want to be electrocuted."_

_"Electrocuted?" She gazed around the ocean to find millions of toasters surrounding her, all bobbing like apples in a barrel. "Where did these come from?"_

_"You're not where you're supposed to be," he told her. "You shouldn't be here."_

_"But I belong with you!"_

_He shook his head. "You're too weak to come with me."_

_"But I'm strong enough! Please believe me!"_

_Kid and the boat floated slowly further and further away, pushing through the cluttered bobbing toasters. Feeling herself drowning, she flailed in the water, before grabbing onto one of the many nearby toasters. To her surprise, it wriggled out of her grasp and morphed into a large catfish, swimming away quickly. Spinning her head around, she watched the rest of the toasters transform into catfish, one by one, before swimming away and towards the direction that Kid had left in._

_She felt strong arms lift her out of the water, like she was being lifted out of a bathtub at the end of a long summer's day. She was set down on a patch of dry grass, back in the garden, and turned to discover the face of her rescuer._

_Kuroba Toichi._

_He put a finger to his mouth as he smiled mysteriously at her. "Let's keep this as our little secret, okay, Aoko-chan?"_

_"Aoko!" A familiar voice called from somewhere behind her. She turned around and saw her house, its peeling sideboards replaced with pristine and new ones. When had she had the time to repair them? She was so busy these days, what with all the schoolwork and homework and lies and deceit. She entered through the back door to find her father in their kitchen, bent over the morning newspaper with a coffee cup in his hand. "That damn villain sent another riddle!"_

_"Riddle? Villain?"_

_"He's an elusive one, that Kaitou 1412," her dad said. "He hasn't appeared in over eight years, why now?"_

_"Eight years? But Kid has been stealing for the past few months, what do you..." The words died on Aoko's lips. This scene was strangely familiar to Aoko. Gazing around at the kitchen, she recalled it perfectly; it was the day Kid had come back from his impromptu eight year hiatus without rhyme or reason. But -_

_"Have you forgotten?" Toichi was standing beside her now, juggling some fruit from her dining table's fruit bowl. "I died. Kaito was so upset. He wanted to be just like me."_

_"Why are you telling me this? I already know all of this," Aoko said._

_"But I don't," the Inspector said sullenly, still perusing the paper with mild interest. "And neither do you, Aoko. Don't kid yourself."_

_Toichi stopped his juggling and put all but an orange back in the fruit bowl. Peeling it in one motion, he removed the rind to reveal a glowing, jet-black gem._

_"Give this to Kaito," he ordered as he handed it to her._

_It was heavy in her hands. Staring down into it, she felt it pulling her into its darkness. "What is it?"_

_"It's an explanation. He won't be happy."_

_She pulled her gaze away and immediately felt the energy pulsating from it receding, dispersing elsewhere into the universe. Toichi and her father were gone, and she was back on the boat with Kid, the sea breeze again whipping against her face. She could taste the salty brine. Kid's white cape was folded up and placed neatly on the ground between them. In her lap she held the heavy jewel. "What do I do with this?"_

_"Do what he told you," Kid said._

_(Nice dream)_

_The jewel slipped out of her grasp and landed with a thud on the boat's floor. Leaning over to pick it up, she found it was immovable. She cried, "I can't pick it up!"_

_Kid stopped rowing to lean over to inspect her dilemma. He ran his gloved fingers over the gem and chuckled._

_"I see what the issue is." He reached into his coat pocket and took out a corkscrew._

_"What are you going to do with that?"_

_He ignored her question and pressed the corkscrew into the jewel. It began spinning quickly, as if powered by some electrical drill, before shattering into a million tiny pieces._

_"Don't tell anyone, alright?" He began throwing the shards overboard into the water. They floated for a few seconds before dissolving. He put a finger to his mouth. "Let's keep this as our little secret, okay, Aoko-chan?"_

_(Nice dream)_

_"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't know what to say."_

_His eyes twinkled at her. "Good."_

_She looked back over at the blue expanse, still just as beautiful as before. "Why did you let me come back?"_

_"I didn't," Kid said. "You're not here."_

_She dipped a finger into the water below. A few inches below the surface, she felt her fingertip come into contact with a hard surface. "Where are you, then?"_

_"On a small boat on a windy day, far away from here, escaping a flood in the West again."_

_"And where am I?"_

_"Lost."_

_She pressed her entire hand onto the surface she touched before. It was just as solid as the boat's floor, if not more. Standing up, she stepped out of the boat and began to walk on the surface, only a small amount of water lapping at her feet as she proceeded._

_"Good luck, Aoko," Kid called after her. "Please don't look back! I won't be able to save you if you do!"_

_She walked and walked until the water disappeared, and she found herself once again in the garden. Kid was waiting for her by a trellis and a few rose bushes. "What took you so long, Aoko?"_

_"I was lost," she said. "I was looking for you."_

_He said, "I wish you wouldn't."_

_He held out the black jewel, now intact, and put it in her hands. It was as light as a feather, and when her fingers touched it, it glowed bright blue. "This is for you."_

_Kid looked at her with expectation. The jewel, however, revealed nothing, and his face was still a blurry mess._

_"Thank you."_

_(Nice dream)_

* * *

When her groggy eyes finally blinked open, she was surprised to see Conan's body sprawled out next to her, still in the type of deep sleep that only a child could have. Glancing around the unfamiliar room she now found herself in, she noted a few initial peculiarities. First, there were no windows or doors in sight. To solve the issue of not having any outside lighting, there was a strong fluorescent bulb hanging from the ceiling that illuminated the room, and a hastily plugged in lamp sitting on a cluttered worktable a few feet away from her. Shadows were cast around the room, making the unfamiliar space seem larger and scarier.

The second peculiarity Aoko noticed was the sheer _amount_ of objects in the room. There were close to - to a bajillion, if she had to garner a guess. Not that that was much of a guess, though. _A bajillion isn't even a real number,_ she chided herself. S _tupid Aoko, stupid stupid stupid!_ Probably the most curious of the clutter was a giant convertible blue-and-white sportscar shoved in the corner, probably never been driven a day in its life. Gadgets and gizmos and other technological marvels poured out of its seats, as if they had been tossed there by a scatterbrained inventor who couldn't be bothered to keep the room in any sort of order whatsoever.

If this messy room was Kid's doing, Aoko had a feeling she'd be doing a lot of cleaning in the near future. And a lot of yelling and lecturing. How could that man even think it was okay to keep such an important room in such a state of disarray?!

Beside her, Conan began to stir. He blinked his eyes open, then sprung up as if he had been electrocuted. "Nakamori-san, how long have I been asleep?"

"I don't know," she said. "I just woke up, myself."

"That guy probably gassed us and brought us here, then," Conan said, gazing around. "Where is he, anyway?"

Aoko shrugged. She didn't know, but there was no point responding to a rhetorical question like that.

"Hey sleepy heads," a voice came from a far corner. "I'm right over here, guys."

Aoko and Conan looked past stacks and stacks of clutter to find the thief staring at them from behind a drafting table, legs propped up and body reclined in a swivel chair. He had changed from his Kudo Shinichi disguise into a full black ensemble, complete with a baseball hat and sunglasses.

"Sorry we didn't see you past all this garbage!" Aoko complained as the two stomped over to the table and sat down in two chairs Kid had produced for them. "Don't you ever clean around here?"

Kid scratched his cheek. "Well, I don't really have a lot of time..."

"Just admit you're too lazy to clean up after yourself."

"I mean..."

Conan coughed. "So, Kid, I get that being an asshole is kind of your M.O., but gassing us? Really?"

"It was a means to an end," Kid shrugged. "Would you have preferred the taser again?"

"Ha ha." Conan drawled humorlessly. "Anyway, it was an unnecessary precaution. Were you trying to keep your lair's location a secret or something? Because I already deduced it."

Kid gaped at him. "What? When? How?"

"When I figured out your identity. There were a few possible spots I came up with, but the fact of you gassing us to bring us here narrowed it down to only one place."

"Well. Regardless, even if I didn't gas you I'd still have to knock Aoko here out. So might as well let two birds nap together, right?"

"Actually, Aoko can probably deduce your lair's location just with the information she already knows," Conan said simply, turning towards Aoko expectedly.

Aoko perked up at the mention of her name, having been still a bit groggy from her forced catnap. She rolled Conan's words over in her head. How the hell would she know where Kid's lair was? She didn't even know who the guy was, for goodness sake! Still, if Conan said she could figure it out, then she could figure it out. She felt herself zone away from the conversation as Kid mumbled something like, "Aoko doesn't know where my lair is, blah blah blah, that's crazy, tantei-kun blah blah."

Perhaps if she listed out the facts she knew instead of the ones she didn't. After all, even if she didn't know the current Kid's identity, she knew the past Kid's identity: Kuroba Toichi. It stood to reason that they would have the same lair - after all, looking around the place, she could pick out certain relics of an older time, including a tape recorder and record player, that were probably passed down from Toichi. That meant that this place had to have been somewhere readily accessible by Toichi. Not only that, but it had to have been able to sit undisturbed for years without the current Kid's knowledge - this was assuming Kid only found out about Toichi being Kid recently, rather than knowing for the past eight years. She wasn't quite sure why she was making that assumption but it just felt... concretely right. So that almost certainly ruled out the possibility of the lair being a rented unit, unless Chikage had been caring for it in the interim. Aoko highly doubted that possibility because Chikage was never around as it was, so the odds of her holding onto an extremely incriminating collection of evidence connecting Toichi to his secret night life when she wasn't even around to protect it were slim to none. So that left very limited options, obviously, but what were those options?

Obviously, Jii was an accomplice. That much was obvious from her visit to the Blue Parrot. Was the lair in the Blue Parrot? She recalled hearing Jii talk to someone in the back room when she had first arrived, and had previously deduced that that 'someone' had been Kid himself. But surely Kid had known she had visited there and was smart enough to realize she had already connected the dots between him and the Blue Parrot? In which case there would be no reason to hide the Blue Parrot's connection to him, since she already knew about it...

So it was something else, wasn't it? Another location he didn't want her to know about. It must be something obvious, for Kid to want to hide it so badly...

"Aha!" She cried, interrupting whatever heated argument Kid and Conan were having at the moment. They paused their petty ribbings to stare at her in expectant confusion. She continued, "I know where your lair is, Kid!"

"And where would that be?"

"Kaito's living room!"

Kid's eyebrows shot fifty feet in the air and his jaw dropped even lower. "And what makes you think that?!"

"The giant door-sized poster of Kuroba Toichi hanging on the living room wall. And the fifteen-foot-wide block of dead space between the living room and kitchen that I never really thought about until now."

Kid pursed his lips together as he seemed to try to keep his Poker Face on straight. Failing, he stood up and excused himself. "I have to go make a call."

Aoko watched Kid step over a few piles of clutter before exiting the room through a giant poster of Kid that swiveled to reveal the familiar picture of Kuroba Toichi on its other side. As he passed through the poster-door, she saw a glimpse of the Kuroba living room. Kid's voice faded away, so that Aoko was only able to hear the first few words of his phone call: " _Hey, 'Phantom Lady', so we need to talk about that brilliant, totally inconspicuous room of yours..._ "

That left Aoko and Conan alone in the Kid's secret hideaway. Speaking of - Aoko turned back to to Conan to find his chair empty, still swiveling slowly on its central support axis. "Edogawa-kun...?"

"Over here, Nakamori-san!" Conan's bell-like voice chimed out from across the room. He was sitting beside a tall bookshelf and surrounded by multicolored files, flipping through them at a rapid pace and discarding them in a neat stack as he finished each one, somehow organizing the files better than they were originally found. He was almost... un-human, the way he flipped through the pages. Almost machine-like, even.

"What are you looking at?" She asked, navigating towards him. Really, how had that boy made it all the way over there so quickly? "Are those Kid's heist plans?"

"No, not really..." Conan said, discarding five files at once. "They're descriptions of the jewels, but not his heists. The file folders are color-coded according to what types of gems they describes - blue for emerald, green for ruby, red for sapphire. You get the gist."

"...Blue for emerald?" Aoko questioned after a moment of befuddlement.

"It's Kid we're talking about, after all," Conan said, rolling his eyes. "His system doesn't have to make sense to us. But it's there, and it's highly organized." Conan thumbed through a certain folder a little slower than the others. A red folder - India's largest sapphire, the Blue Birthday. "I didn't think he would care so much about these gemstones, considering he doesn't hold on to them for long. I just assumed they were mere props for his magic shows. Perhaps they have some value to him after all..."

"Oh, that's right. You don't know," Aoko said.

Conan put the red folder down and looked at her with that icy, piercing gaze of his. The calculating gaze that could melt even the hardest of criminals in their spot. "I don't know what?"

"Kid's motive." Aoko swept her gaze to the side, growing uncomfortable as Conan's stare sharpened. "I don't think I should say any more."

Conan was silent for a moment, probably analyzing every fiber of her being. When he spoke, it was like a sword stabbing her in her side. "Nakamori-san, I wanted to talk to you about your relationship with Kid."

"What about it?" She said, probably a little too defensively.

"I don't really understand what you two are to each other exactly, and I know it's not my place to say anything, but -" Conan took a big sigh. Was this somehow hard for him to say? "- whatever it is, it seems a little unhealthy to me."

Aoko felt steam rise in her chest suddenly, fists clenching as she simmered like a pot ready to boil. The nerve of this guy, to talk about her relationship with Kid when he knew nothing about it! "Of course you would say that! You're a detective chasing after Kid. What would you know about our relationship -"

"I have a girlfriend, you know," Conan said softly, sounding very far away. Aoko felt her building rage dissipate in an instant, instead feeling confused at the rapid change in topic. "Her name's Ran and she's amazing. We grew up together and did everything together. She's strong, and smart, and kind. You would like her if you met her. I think I've liked her as long as I've known her." Aoko could have sworn Conan's cheeks turned red as he said that. "I turned into Conan before I had the chance to tell her how I feel. We only started dating after I took a temporary antidote and confessed to her, but as it is we barely get to see each other. I mean, I see her all the time but she doesn't see me. I call her when I can, because I like her and I want to have a relationship with her, but I can't be honest with her because there's an entire part of me I can't tell her about. In the end, I can't really even be me when I'm talking to her as my true self. I can't be me as long as I'm Conan."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I think Kid and I are similar, as much as I hate to say it. You said you two are in a relationship, but who are you really with? Kid? Or the person behind the monocle?"

Aoko shook her head, and crossed her arms defiantly. Like hell she would let this kid try to psychoanalyze her. "First of all, I never said Kid and I are in a relationship. We just went on one date and we're still kind of figuring things out. Nothing's official. And second, I don't even understand what you're trying to say, they're the same person -"

"No, they're not. Not to you, at least." Conan said. "Ran knows me as two different people, even though I know just her. If I ever come clean to Ran, it's going to hurt her because she's going to have to reconcile two people she knew separately as the same. One, Kudo Shinichi, who she is romantically involved with - and two, Edogawa Conan, who is not romantically involved with. She has feelings for one and not the other. Do you understand?"

"But I don't know Kid as a separate person. I just know Kid, not his real identity. So no real harm done."

"Are you sure about that?"

Aoko squared her shoulders and set her jaw firmly in place. "Yes, I am sure. Kid wouldn't lie to me like that, as Kid or as his real identity." A flicker of her conversation with Chikage a day earlier flashed through her mind. Chikage knew who Kid was, but gave no indication that Aoko knew him already. Chikage had made it clear she wouldn't reveal Kid's identity, but it wasn't like Chikage wouldn't tell Aoko if it was someone Aoko already knew, right? "And besides, I think I would know if someone I know already is actually Kid."

"Denial is a very deep river in Egypt, Nakamori-san. I would wade carefully," Conan said. "I think you will be very surprised to know who Kid is."

"Well, why don't you just tell me, if you're so convinced I already know the guy?" Aoko fumed, her anger from earlier slowly sizzling back through her veins.

"Because I don't want to hurt you. I bet you could figure out your relationship with Kid, just - not like this. At this rate, it'd probably be best if you never know who Kid really is."

"Well, what about you and your girlfriend? How can you sit there and lecture me on my relationship when you are knowingly deceiving someone you love? You sound pretty hypocritical right now," Aoko bit back.

"I do, don't I?" Conan barked out a sad laugh. "That's the irony of it all. I guess it's hard not to be selfish when it comes to love."

Aoko was about to respond when the spinning of the Kuroba Toichi portrait alerted them to the return of Kid. He had a serious, deep expression, probably from his conversation with the Phantom Lady - the connection she had to any of this Aoko still had yet to contemplate - but suddenly his signature charismatic grin appeared on his face. "What's all this talk about love that I just interrupted? 'I guess it's hard not to be selfish when it comes to love?' Tantei-kun, do you really believe that crap?" Kid shook his head theatrically, before producing a bouquet of roses for Aoko. "Love can't be love if it's selfish. Then it's just misdirected cowardice. Love, at its core, is selfless. That's what makes it so beautiful."

Aoko took the bouquet from Kid after a moment's hesitation, catching a disapproving glance from Conan as she did. Conan didn't think her relationship with Kid was healthy - and as much as it hurt her to admit it, maybe there was a small piece of her that agreed with him. Perhaps it was true that her relationship with Kid was built on false pretenses and lies and selfishness. What would she do if she ever found out Kid's identity? How hurt would she be? Was Conan right that it would be better for her not to know? She and Kid obviously liked each other, maybe even more, but was that enough? Was that actually the problem? Conan made it sound like the more she liked Kid, the worse off she was. Maybe she really ought to just toss the flower bouquet out and run home. Maybe she really ought to just turn Kid over to her father, like the good daughter her father thought she was. Maybe she ought to face her own denials, instead of avoiding them and hoping her greatest fears weren't true.

But the flowers just smelled so sweet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's been sending me kind, positive messages. Thank you also to everyone who shared their stories of loss. I miss my friend every day, and in a strange way it's comforting to know that I'm not crazy for missing him or feeling this grief. If anyone wants to PM me to talk, I'm always open. We can talk about loss or grief or sadness or even just death in general, it doesn't matter. I just want to be available for others like others were for me. I cannot stress how thankful I am for everyone who reached out to me and allowed me to reach out to them. Seriously, thank you guys.
> 
> Anyway, I tried writing this chapter on and off for the past few months so it might seem jerky and directionless - completely my bad, sorry guys. I've just had a lot going on lately. As in - I graduated from college finally (still have another year left but that's a separate degree haha)! And I got a job! I'm working on a COVID floor in a hospital as a nurse, so... needless to say it's been busy. But it's a good busy! I have to take my licensing exam next week so everyone send your good vibes my way!
> 
> Finally, to talk about the chapter's content. Aoko is starting to face her denial. This is stemming from the fact that Kid essentially catfished her, but also didn't, so the whole situation is just a little confusing for both of them. Kaito is Kid but Aoko doesn't know that. Aoko doesn't know who she thinks Kid is, but until she finds out his identity she isn't really considering the fact that Kid has a real identity. And that's... kind of the entire problem. Conan is an outsider looking in, but in basically the same predicament. He's smart enough to understand that's it's not a good relationship dynamic, but he admits he might not be strong enough to deny the selfish part of him. But he is conscious to his deceit, and Aoko is getting more conscious to her denial, and... Kaito/Kid is still sticking his head in the sand. Which isn't really a good thing to do when it comes to relationships, eek.
> 
> Hope to see you all around soon! I love writing but it's so hard to find the inspiration. We'll see when the next chapter shows up. Until then... good vibes only!


	21. The White Fox

"As much as I love to wax eloquent about Lady Love with you dear friends of mine," KID said, winking at Aoko before turning to Conan with a suddenly serious expression, "I think it's about time we get to the main topic of discussion. What do you say, tantei-kun?"

With an expression of great remorse, and a little annoyance, Conan brushed off the stacks of folders he had buried himself in and glared at KID with steel eyes sharper than the bladed edges of the thief's playing cards. "I suppose it's only fair… but as a warning, the information you receive from here on out is enough to put you in serious grave danger."

"I thought we were already in grave danger?" Aoko asked in confusion. "You said we were in danger for just knowing you are – who you really are. So?"

"So there's a difference between having a target on your back and having a bounty hunter actively searching for you," Conan said.

"Wait, there's bounty hunters looking for you?" KID asked, just as confused as Aoko. "I didn't know these guys were bounty hunters too?"

"No!" Conan slapped his forehead and sighed in exasperation. "I meant it as a metaphor. Think about it this way… A blue fish and a purple fish swim into a creek that's a popular fishing spot. There's a prize being offered for catching the blue fish, so all the fishermen are trying to catch it. The purple fish is a normal fish but if the light hits the water at the wrong angle, it might appear blue and so the fishermen might try to catch it, although it isn't their true aim. Which fish is at greater danger?"

KID's face had turned clammy and pale at this point. "I don't like your example," he said, shivering slightly. Aoko guessed he was probably cold – where were the heat ducts in this room, anyway? He leaned back in the chair he had taken and rolled Conan's question around in his head. "Anyway, why does the fish have to be blue? Why not red?"

"You are absolutely worthless," Conan said flatly. "Nakamori-san? Thoughts?"

"Well…" Aoko mumbled. What _were_ her thoughts on the matter? Because that's what Conan was really asking, wasn't he? "I guess it wouldn't have changed the question much if the fish had been red, so I guess I agree with KID on that."

Conan gave Aoko a long hard stare before groaning loudly as she and KID burst into laughter. "Do you two have any real thoughts on the matter? Otherwise I'm not saying anything and we can all just go home." His eyes wandered over and locked in on KID's. "Or, I suppose just Nakamori-san and I can go home."

"No – no, we're taking this seriously, we are, honest," KID quickly said, trying his best to muster a serious tone despite the wide smile still on his face. "Let's see, what did you want? An opinion?" KID tapped his chin a few times, making a show of his thought process. "Obviously both are in the same amount of danger. Even if it's just the blue – um, what animal were we using again? The fox, was it? Anyway, even if it's just the blue fox that's being hunted, the purple fox can still fall into the crossfire because it can be easily mistaken for the blue fox. The purple fox is in danger just for being in the same hunting spot as the blue fox."

" _Fish_ ," Conan said with stern simplicity, before turning to Aoko.

Aoko racked her mind. "The purple fox isn't always in danger though. You said it depends on the light, right? The purple fox is only in danger if the foxermen think it's the blue fox. As long as the light is right, there's no worries for the purple fox."

" _Fish_ ," Conan said again, although with less command. He seemed to understand the losing battle he was fighting.

"But Aoko," KID said, "the foxermen aren't necessarily going to wait around patiently for the blue fox to show up. They might just hunt any fox that has the mere resemblance of the blue fox. I mean, that's what I'm doing, after all."

"Wait -" Conan said, before thinking better of it. "We're coming back to that later."

KID stuck his tongue out. "Not in a million years!"

"Edogawa-kun," Aoko said suddenly. "All this talk of blue and purple foxes and foxermen is great, but I think we're just confusing ourselves and talking in circles. I get it's hard to talk about talking about something like this, but I think we can all agree that not knowing about a dangerous situation that we're in is worse than knowing, even if it puts us at a little more risk."

"But that's exactly what we were just discussing," Conan said.

"Is it?" KID interrupted, surprised. "Honestly, I just thought we were having a fun time talking about a hypothetical scenario involving magical foxes."

"For the last time, they were _fish_ ," Conan bit out sourly. "Anyway, Nakamori-san, the point is that when you were talking about the fish, you said the purple fish is still relatively safe. That's where you guys are right now - treading in dangerous waters, but still safe as long as you stay away from me and my secrets."

Aoko thought on this. Conan made a good point. And wasn't she the one who was just crying about KID putting her in so much danger lately? "I guess..."

"Well, what about me?" KID said, looking like he was about to throw a tantrum. "I never said anything about the stupid purple fox being safe. Does that earn me the ticket to knowing your secrets, oh wise meitantei?"

"Ugh," Conan sighed, pinching his nose to stave off an incoming headache. He closed his eyes, imaginary thinking cap firmly in place on his head. Finally his eyes sprung open like he had just been jolted by KID's taser again. "Here's what I'm going to do. I think I owe you both some sort of explanation, because it's not smart to have you two running around without any knowledge of why this secret needs to be kept so secret. But at the same time, I can't tell you two most things about this."

"Sounds fair," KID said.

"Agreed," Aoko, well, agreed.

"As long as you tell me the whole story once Aoko's not listening," KID added.

Conan pointedly ignored that comment and began to rack his brain. "Let's see, where to begin, where to begin..."

Aoko piped up. "How about you start with explaining how you shrunk? Honestly I think that's what we're most confused about."

"Oh," Conan said. "Oh, that. That's like - that story is like the least of my issues right now honestly. Which is saying a lot. But fine, sure. Basically I saw some men in black trenchcoats acting suspiciously, so I pursued them -"

"- AKA stuck your nose where it doesn't belong, yet again -"

"Shut up, KID. Anyway, these men in black noticed me following them, so they caught me off guard and knocked me out. Due to circumstances, they didn't want to draw attention by using firearms, so they opted to use an experimental poison to try to kill me. It obviously didn't work, and through some insanely rare side effect I'm now Edogawa Conan."

Aoko listened intently. "So they have absolutely no idea that you're even still alive? How does that work if they never found a body?"

"To address the first part - uh, I think at least one of them knows who I am, but that's a complicated issue that I don't really want to get into. As for the second part, they were suspicious at first as to whether I was dead or not, so they conducted an investigation to find out for sure. And thus, to them, Kudo Shinichi is dead."

KID blew some air out of the corner of their mouth. "Damn, tantei-kun, they must suck at investigating then. You're obviously still alive, after all. There's got to be all kinds of evidence saying so, how could they miss that? Fingerprints, hair strands, you literally being you, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera..."

Conan was unimpressed by KID's perfect imitation of the _The King and I_ quote and thus ignored it straightly. "It's not that they 'suck,' as you so aptly phrased it, so much as the records were tampered with by one of their own without their knowledge."

"Which one of them would -" KID started asking, before a lightbulb flipped on over his head. "Oh. Sherry?"

"Sherry?" Aoko echoed, with more confusion than KID apparently had on the matter.

"Sherry," Conan confirmed, nodding.

"Who is Sherry, anyway?" KID asked. "That evil, yet strangely handsome guy - wait damn sorry Aoko - anyway, that guy on the train seemed to really not like her."

"She's the creator of the drug that shrunk me. She's a traitor in their eyes now, so she's in hiding with me. By the way, 'that evil yet strangely handsome guy' is named Bourbon, and he's not exactly on their side."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Aoko put her hand up. "How do you know you can trust someone from the Men In Black?"

"Are you talking about Sherry or Bourbon?"

Aoko considered this for a moment. "Both."

"Well, I don't exactly trust either of them. Bourbon has his own agenda so I don't really trust any of my secrets with him, whereas Hai- umm Sherry is a little too intent on keeping others safe. She'd rather let the organization kill her before she let someone uninvolved become a target. Which, as you can imagine, makes it hard to trust her not to make rash decisions when They are involved."

"Sounds a little like someone I know," Aoko eyed KID, who whistled innocently in response.

"You gonna tell us any more information about this 'Hai umm Sherry' or is that it?" KID asked suddenly. "Like why she looks so much like that creepy little girl at your Professor's house?"

Conan glared at KID. "I didn't want to bring her up, but to confirm what I'm assuming you're implying, yes, she is Sherry. Shrunken, just like me."

"How many people have been shrunken by the Men in Black?" Aoko wondered aloud. "Are all elementary schools secretly grown adults? Are children just a conspiracy -"

"Nakamori-san, I'm going to stop you right there. For one, because every time you say 'Men in Black' it makes me think you think They have some connection with the 1997 _Men in Black_ film, which I'll just state for clarity's sake that they do not. Anyway, no, children are obviously real. I really don't like that I just had to say that to you. I expected a question like that from KID, not you. Lastly, there's two, maybe three of us shrunken people out there -"

" _Little people_ ," KID corrected sternly with a click of his tongue, ever the politically correct advocate.

"- and that's about it. Do you two have any other questions?"

"Can you elaborate a bit more about this organization?" KID asked. "What's their motivation?"

"I'm not sure yet. I just know they operate in complete secrecy and they'd rather abandon entire missions than allow the public to find out about their existence. I also know they're a far-reaching group that operates internationally."

"The codenames you mentioned so far all seem to be alcohol related. Is that a coincidence?"

Conan shook his head. "No coincidence. They all seem to be alcohol-related, and for now I'm assuming it's just a convenient naming theme rather than an indication of their underlying motivation." Conan looked at KID with sudden interest. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason at all," KID shrugged. "Just wondering if you've bumped into a member with the codename of Snake yet."

"A member named 'Snake?' I don't believe so," Conan said, racking his brain. "And it doesn't seem to fit with the alcohol-based name theme. Why? Have you met someone with that codename?"

"You could say that. Anyway, not important. Just curious if there was any relation."

"Anyway, the core concept I was trying to have you two realize is that you two are the purple fish right now. You know some information, but not enough to make yourselves an active target. You are both still in danger because They don't know how much information you two know, but you aren't going to be on their immediate Hit List. Conversely, if I were to tell you both everything about the scenario, you two would become the blue fish."

"Enough with the foxes, tantei-kun," KID said. "It's annoying. Anyway, I don't think I agree with what you're saying. I'm not a blue or a purple fox. I'm a white fox."

"Which means?" Conan said, eyebrows raised and eyes lidded with dull patience at whatever stupid remark KID was going to say next.

KID, for his part, refrained from indulging in easy stupidity. "No information you can ever tell me will put a target on my back, because my entire identity is that of a target."

Conan contemplated this for a long, icy cold moment. Aoko wondered, once more, about the patency of the heat ducts in the room. Finally Conan spoke, a grave tone now settled into his words. "And what about Nakamori-san?"

"She's not a fox at all. She's Aoko," KID flicked his eyes to her and locked them on her. "And Aoko can't have a target on her back either, because I'll stop anyway whoever tries to hurt her."

Aoko's heart thudded in her chest as she felt her face flush. Of course she knew KID was a seductive flirt, but this was - !

A loud high-pitched yelp came from the depths of KID's vocal chords as he jumped backwards suddenly, hobbling in pain. "The hell was that kick in the family jewels for, tantei-kun?!"

"Didn't mean to kick that high," Conan grinned, the unsaid _I'm lying, idiot_ remaining, well, unsaid. "Anyway, that's for making googly eyes at Nakamori-san and then spouting some hopeless romantic nonsense."

"I meant every word of it!" KID whined. "On a Kaitou's honor, I will protect Aoko from any -"

Conan geared up for another kick, and KID promptly shut his mouth.

"You are both in serious danger if you actually believe that," Conan said sternly. "If you are foolish enough to allow yourself that much of a debilitating weakness, I think you'd both be lucky to see your next birthdays - regardless of any intervention from me."

KID eyed Conan so coldly Aoko almost shivered, lips tightly pressed together. Aoko recognized that expression - she'd seen Kaito wear it a few times before. A Poker Face strong enough to break glass. KID must have gotten _angry_ about that last comment. "I don't think you're welcome here anymore."

"I'll be happy to show myself out," Conan bit back, stomping towards the Kuroba Toichi portrait. "Good to know you aren't begging me to dig your graves anymore."

"I think we gained more than enough information from this absolutely _enthralling_ conversation," KID drawled. "Say hi to the girlfriend for me, will ya?"

"Might do you one better and bring her over to visit," Conan sniffed back.

"If you do that, I might do _you_ one better and dress up as you again so I can break up with her and disentangle you from your messy web of _debilitating weaknesses_. Don't need any vulnerabilities lying around, now do we, tantei-kun?"

Conan stopped just past the portrait's threshold, standing entirely in the living room now. "Cut the crap, KID. You and I both know the only reason you're mad is because I brought up your ridiculously selfish, unhealthy farce of a relationship with Nakamori-san."

"I love Aoko!" KID declared suddenly, with a grand flourish.

...And shit, if it wasn't the first time Aoko heard him say it. And even shittier shit, since it wasn't giving her the butterflies in her stomach she thought it would.

KID seemed to realize the words that had just come out of his mouth, eyeballs popping wide out of their sockets. The world seemed to fall into slow motion as his gaze crawled, inch by inch, millimeter by millimeter, over to where Aoko stood with her mouth agape. Conan, too, found himself staring in bewilderment - only, his stare was directed not at Aoko but at KID.

Silence drained the room of any sense of familiarity. Whose house were they in? Who were these two - the boy and the thief? How had she arrived here? How would she leave?

Aoko realized that that last question was the easiest to answer, somehow, as she elbowed past the short child in her path and hurdled herself out of the Kuroba household. One thought was on her mind: _ignorance is bliss_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ignorance is bliss, what a phrase indeed. Aoko has just learned some crucial details that cannot be unlearned. Namely - KID loves her. But does she love him? Is she able to love him? And for that matter - was his declaration genuine, or just an extension of their mutual denial about the validity of their relationship? Secondly, Conan hasn't revealed a whole lot about the Organization in his opinion, but it is still bucketloads more than any casual citizen should be able to know safely. This seems to hit Aoko hard towards the end of the chapter, where she realizes she literally has no protection against whoever these evil Men in Black are. And this realization only seems to hit after she learns KID's deluded himself that he can protect her because he supposedly loves her. Sure thing.
> 
> Complicated chapter with complicated feelings. Very pivotal in Aoko and KID's relationship, and thus very necessary. As such - this was a very difficult chapter to write so I hope I got everything across that I was trying to say. Hopefully this little note explains some of what I was going for.
> 
> Until next time - see you guys soon! Have a beautiful day!


	22. Can We Talk?

It seemed like, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get her eyes to close. So, instead, she settled for staring at the wall as she curled her arms around her legs and cried dry, irritating tears through her bleary, sore eyes.

Why did everything hurt so much? Why was her heart throbbing such empty, pulseless beats? Why did anything have to happen today?

KID hadn't followed her back to her house, so that was at least one blessing. She didn't think she could stand to look at him right now. His stupid _I Love You's_ would just burn a scar worse than any crime he's ever committed. She needed time away from him. Time to think, and to rationalize, and to sort out just what she wanted and what she needed. And there was a hell of a lot that she wanted.

But just what exactly did she want from _him_? That was the million dollar question, after all.

What was she doing with someone like him? Why was she so keen on hanging around - dating, for Pete's sake - an international jewel thief?! Had she lost her mind in the past few weeks? Had Kaito performed a trick and made her brain disappear? It certainly felt that way. She rolled over and stared straight up, heaving hard breaths. At least the ceiling was very pretty. Plain and blank. No questions or dilemmas there. Huh. A flop onto her stomach. She needed to talk to someone - someone who would understand. She blindly reached for her phone, clicked it on, and surfed through her contacts.

Kaito?

Not Kaito.

Chikage?

Not Chikage.

Hakuba?

She paused at that, a slight smile on her face and a bubble of a giggle churning out of her. Yeah, right. She scrolled onwards.

Keiko? Akako? No and no.

Kaito? Again, no. Why'd she even come back to him, like she had to consider him twice?

But who else was there to talk to? Who else was she close enough to confide in? Who else would _understand_?

Her computer let out a mechanical whistle as its fan whirred in its slumber. It never seemed to sleep when she told it to. But it gave her an idea.

She jumped out of bed and clambered onto the chair, bringing the computer to life with the push of a button. Minutes later the screen had illuminated the room and she was surfing the web to a familiar page: "Kaitou Kid 1412 Fanclub Chat Room."

She logged onto her old account and found herself confronted once again with the memories of the night before. Had it really been last night? Just mere hours ago, when Kudo and her had found KID standing over a bloodthirsty, heartbroken, _jealous_ version of himself? Was that really just seconds ago - many seconds, but seconds regardless? She felt her blood run cold as she looked at her friend list. That girl's username, in all its glorious pixels, sat before her. But Kait0uKidsWife8795 was no longer around and would never be around to log onto this site again.

The girl had said it was all because of her. It was all Aoko's fault.

Aoko was a rational girl. But when someone like that said something like that - God, it stung.

The chat was active. She forced herself to peel her eyes away from that painful set of pixels. She was here for comfort, not more hurt.

 **KIDplsHAVEmyKID:** Probably some lame copycat again.

What? Aoko scrolled back through the chat log. Oh. They were wondering what went down during the heist last night.

 **13OfDiamonds:** Heard someone died.

Understatement of the century, Aoko scoffed.

 **AcesOut:** That'd be an understatement if I ever heard one. I heard it was a bloodbath - like fifteen officers got shot, three died. My brother was one of the lucky ones.

 **KIDplsHAVEmyKID:** Your brother's a cop? Traitor.

 **AcesOut:** Fuck off, he's a security guard. NOT a cop.

 **KIDplsHAVEmyKID:** Same difference. Just another asshole trying to catch KID.

Aoko couldn't stop her fingers as they grew a mind of their own and started typing their own thoughts on the matter -

 **KidKiller:** How insensitive can you be? Cop or not, nobody deserves to get shot. Especially not because of a stupid thief.

 **13ofDiamonds:** Wait a minute, who are you?

 **KIDplsHAVEmyKID:** You're that bitch who always used to log on and and read shit without posting anything, aren't you? You can go fuck off as well, we don't need trolls or haters here. This is a SAFE SPACE for KID FANS. Get fucking lost

\- and Aoko seethed, nails pummeling the keys faster and faster -

 **KidKiller** : You are all so fucking simple-minded! He's just some dumb thief you don't even know! What, you think you and him are ever going to have a relationship? You think he gives a shit about you? You're just some rabid fan he uses like a tool in his stupid magic kit. He manipulates you to get publicity. You're a fucking pawn. Get over yourself!

 **13ofDiamonds:** Christ, someone call the whambulance

 **KIDplsHAVEmyKID:** Someone shit in your cheerios or something bitch?

 **13ofDiamonds:** Bitch, nobody goes on this fucking site expecting to talk to the fucking guy. We're just fans, it's not that hard of a fucking concept

She reread that a few times through suddenly weary eyes. Why _was_ she taking things on this website so seriously? Why were they hurting her feelings so much, these rude words from strangers on some obscure internet fan site? Some obscure internet fan site of a guy she wasn't even sure she wanted to be around anymore...

 **KidKiller:** Well I've actually talked to him and he's an asshole and a half. So maybe get a different hobby

A moment passed. Aoko considered closing out the window. She was kind of done with this site. It wasn't giving her the catharsis she needed right now. In fact, it was just getting her wound up more.

 **KIDplsHAVEmyKID** : tf you mean you've talked to him?

 **13ofDiamonds:** don't take the b8, m8

Should she elaborate? Aoko considered it.

 **KidKiller:** yup. talked to him, met him, the whole nine yards.

Ah, what the hell. She's done way more incriminating things anyway.

 **13ofDiamonds:** 1 good reason why we should believe you?

Aoko racked her brain and came up empty. They were talking about KID after all. KID doesn't leave evidence, for crimes or otherwise.

 **KidKiller:** because it's true?

 **13ofDiamonds:** Sure, sure. What does he look like then?

 **KIDplsHAVEmyKID:** What's his name?

 **KidKiller:** It's KID, why would he let me know any of that?

 **13ofDiamonds:** so you have no evidence?

 **KIDplsHAVEmyKID:** what a fucking poser. stop lying for attention and get the fuck offline

She really should - get the fuck offline, like that person said. What was she even doing here?

She was spiraling, really. That's what she was doing. She turned away from her computer and put her face in her hands. These people wouldn't understand. Nobody could understand. Nobody - especially not -

A knock resonated through her room. Reflexively she spun her head towards the window to find the sill vacant, save a few leaves from the neighbor's tree. Guess KID wasn't trying to make an appearance right now. It turned out to be her bedroom door instead, she discovered quickly, as the door swung open slowly and her father's tired face peered inside.

Oh, shit. She had forgotten about him. What time was it anyway? A quick glance at the clock on the wall said it was closing in on 3 AM.

"Hi, dad," she said, feeling about as caught off-guard as a mouse in a trap.

"You're still up?" he said, clearly concerned. Then, as if to explain his own wakefulness: "I just got back from the office."

Redirect redirect redirect. Aoko feigned a yawn. "Was just about to go to bed."

"Alright." Her father hesitated in the doorway, caught in the moment before _goodnight_. She prayed he'd say it. Just end the conversation and let her go back to stewing. "Are you?"

"What?"

"Nothing," he said. "Goodnight, Aoko."

He was halfway down the stairs before she found herself padding over to the hallway, perched on the top of the landing peering down at him. "Dad - wait -"

When had his face grown so many wrinkles. He stopped on the last step and looked back up at her, ten stairsteps below her, hand pressing against the banister like a man who'd been chasing something for twenty years without rest.

"Can we talk?" She felt her face blow up. Her eyes suddenly hurt.

"Can it wait until -"

She didn't wait for him to finish that sentence. They'd never been good at this family thing, anyway. She shut the door and practically threw her ragdoll self onto the bed, clutching the pillow against her face. Why couldn't she find a single person to talk to? Why was basic human interaction such a hot commodity?

She barely registered her father's footsteps coming back up the stairs, but she felt his warm presence as he sat down on the bed next to her.

"Go to sleep," she muttered.

"What did you want to talk about?" His gruff smoker voice had a sleepy undertone.

"Nothing."

"Aoko. Tell me what's wrong."

She sat up from her mess of blankets and looked at her father. For the third time that night she registered how tired his face looked. It made her wonder if maybe this would be the best opportunity to come clean with everything. If she told him anything, would he even remember it in the morning?

"It's a boy," she said, testing the waters.

Her father, through the sleepiness, mustered up an uncomfortable expression. She knew he wouldn't want to be the one she'd talk to about those types of issues. "Kaito-kun?"

"No." A pause. "I think I'm in really big trouble and I don't know what to do."

Her father raised an eyebrow. "More trouble than you get in with Kaito-kun?"

"Yes." She couldn't look at her father when she said this. She just couldn't. "This guy - he does illegal things and bad people want to hurt him. And I'm scared they might want to hurt me too."

No response from her father.

"I didn't tell you about him because I knew you'd disapprove. But I truly thought -" What did she think? She could judge better than the law? Criminals aren't bad people? "I'm an idiot."

"Has this person hurt you?"

Out of all the responses - out of all the possible things she expected her father to ask - why was this not the first question she expected?

"Of course not," she said, before a half-smile broke across her face. "He's been nothing but amazing all the times we've met."

"What's his name?"

And why did she not expect this as the next question her father would ask? Her mouth ran dry as she searched for a lie, any lie to give her father. Just to postpone the inevitable judgement he'd have of her - his stupid daughter who got herself caught up in a stupidly dangerous situation. His stupid daughter who was old enough to know better. "I don't know."

She felt his body tense beside her as she gave her response, like his body was winding up for something.

"Where did I go wrong with you?" His voice came out in a stilted whisper, before ramping up into outright fury. "HOW COULD YOU BE THIS IDIOTIC? YOU MEAN YOU'VE JUST BEEN ROMPING AROUND TOWN WITH SOME RANDOM STRANGER WHO YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW THE NAME OF? THIS IS HOW GIRLS LIKE YOU WIND UP DEAD IN THE BAY HARBOR! DID YOU EVER EVEN THINK OF THE CONSEQUENCES? YOU'RE LUCKY YOU DIDN'T GET YOURSELF KILLED, AOKO! HOW CAN I EVER TRUST YOU TO LEAVE THE HOUSE AGAIN? HOW CAN I TRUST YOU TO NOT BE THIS - THIS - THIS GULLIBLE AND NAIVE?" He seemed to run out of steam, but with the last bit of breath, he muttered, "I didn't expect you to be this irresponsible, Aoko. Not you."

She was used to her father yelling. She heard him yelling on the TV at reporters and bystanders and detectives and officers and especially KID. But it had been a long time since he'd yelled at her.

"I'm sorry," he said after a while. "I'm sorry. I just get scared for you. You're my daughter."

She nodded. She refused to speak. She wouldn't be able to if she tried, anyway.

"This is a very stupid thing for you to do. Very stupid." He let out a sigh. "But I'm glad you told me."

He didn't need to tell her over and over how stupid she was. She got that loud and clear the first time.

"Aoko," he put his hands on her shoulders and she felt her eyes lock in on his. He looked like the stern, concerned father he never had been. "I don't want you to see this boy again."

"But -" _It isn't that simple_ , she wanted to say. _He'd come and find me anyway._

"No 'but's, Aoko. You said he's dangerous and that you're scared. It's late tonight, so in the morning I want you to tell me everything you can about this person. I need to know more so that I can make sure you're safe."

 _I can't do that_ , she wanted to say. _It'd break your heart._

She bit her lip instead. There was only one acceptable response at this point, after all. "Okay."

With that, her father stumbled downstairs to his bedroom to finally find some rest. Aoko, on the other hand, found none.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter only took me like four months to write, no biggie. Probably ridden with plotholes and OOC but I just wanted to be done with it and submit it. Basically I struggled for a long time with figuring out who Aoko could turn to at a moment like this. So here you go.
> 
> It's about 9 AM by me so I guess it's time for bed!


	23. The OK Diner Part II

Aoko woke up to a whisper in her ear. "Aoko, wake up."

Familiar. Warm. Kaito? KID?

Her eyes flew open and she stared at the person sitting on her bed, shaking her shoulders to wake her. Her father's face greeted her. "Wake up, Aoko. It's almost noon."

"Let me sleep," she said, trying to turn back over. _I don't want to talk about anything I said last night. Please, dad, just let us ignore it... like we ignore everything else..._

"Aoko," her father sighed, letting out a breath that smelled like too much nicotine. Had he been smoking again? "You can't sleep all day."

She stayed resiliently silent.

"I'll take you out to lunch if you get up," he tried.

She cursed his damn negotiation skills.

* * *

The diner was small, but hostile. By all the luck in the world, it just so happened to be the same diner she had been at last night with KID and Ku- Conan. Right. She felt a pang of a headache coming on. It was too early to be dealing with that can of worms right now. She accepted the menu from the waitress (different waitress this time, she noted - of course, it was a different time of day, not everything was the same as last night - maybe last night was all just some obscure reality that never quite actually happened - maybe last night never happened at all) and picked out a small item. She had no appetite. At the very least she'd nibble on it while her father drilled her for answers.

The waitress put two water glasses down on the table and left them to wait for their food. Aoko tried to get a read of her father's face, but it was completely unreadable. After years of chasing after KID it was only fitting he'd develop a Poker Face of his own. But the anticipation was nerve-wracking, and the longer her father stayed quiet, staring at her unflinchingly, the more she grew restless.

Well, she wouldn't be a Nakamori if she avoided the topic completely. Nakamoris had a bad habit of ripping bandaids off - quickly, too. "I guess you want to know more about the guy I was talking about last night, huh."

Not a question.

Ginzo peered at her blankly, face revealing nothing, offering a response that danced around the topic in a similarly blunt way. "I'd guess so."

She took a deep breath. Where to begin? What to reveal? Why was this so hard? She'd always been honest with her father. When did that stop? Maybe that was why this was so hard to do...

"Don't be angry with me," she started, staring at the table.

Her eyes flicked up for a moment to find that same hard stare from her father. Solid as granite. "I can't promise that, Aoko."

"The boy, he's -" she scrambled for a word to stay that wouldn't tick her father off more - anything - really, anything! - "Kaitou KID."

And there it was.

Aoko resisted the urge to look at her father. She really, really didn't want to see his look of disgust. Anger. Disappointment?

"I had a feeling," was all he said.

 _That_ caught her off guard. Her head flew up and she peered at him like she was looking at some alien creature. _"What?!"_

"I thought about it this morning," Ginzo said. "This isn't the first time I've had someone tell me those things."

She gaped at him. "Who else?"

He was looking out at the window, the ghost of a smile on his lips. He seemed a little more relaxed, a little less attentive - as if he hardly heard her question. Maybe he was amused by a street performer on the street corner? "You, of course."

"Me?" She shook her heard. "What do you mean?"

"When you were little," he began, before being interrupted by the waitress arriving with their food.

He began again. "When you were little, you had a lot of bad nightmares. Your mom's death, you know. A few weeks after the funeral you came sobbing into my room in the middle of the night. You said a bad man had been breaking into your room and that you weren't supposed to tell me. I made you describe him to me so I could sic the dogs on him and arrest him, but all you said was he was dressed like an angel who couldn't see." Ginzo let out a small chuckle, low and warm. "I've heard enough witness statements from clueless civilians to know how to piece a description together. It was KID, obviously." He snorted. "So I did what any rational parent would do, and marched over and - I mean - I caught up with him at the next heist and told him to stop bothering my little girl."

_Wait, what was that just then?_

"Did he say what he was doing?"

"He," Ginzo averted his eyes momentarily, just to peek at what the street performer was doing. Standing still, just like a good statue would do. "He was reading you bedtime stories."

She blinked. "I don't remember any of that."

"I'm not surprised," her father said, sipping his water. "You were young."

"Why didn't you ever tell me about this?"

"I didn't think I had to. Besides," he eyed her curiously, "some secrets you should just let rest in peace."

_Now, that was definitely -_

"You know," she said, more accusingly than she meant.

His face lightened with a careful expression of suspicious innocence. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"I know, too." She said. "About Toichi-ojisan."

Steel fell over Ginzo's eyes. He stared at her coldly, before a gust of wind came from the diner door as a patron left. It seemed to knock down whatever mask he was trying to put up, leaving just Nakamori Ginzo _(father)_ staring at Nakamori Aoko _(daughter)_. He sighed lightly. "So who told you? Chikage or Kaito?"

"Chikage," she said without thinking, before her mind registered the other answer. Then, almost like a truck backing up slowly... _BEEP... BEEP... BEEP..._ "Kaito... is...?"

"Not that I'm aware of," Ginzo said quickly, suddenly finding his food quite a bit more interesting than before.

"Well, who else would it be?" she demanded. Because she _knew_ her father had a list of all his favorite Kaitou KID suspects down at the station - and strike her with lightning that minute if he _didn't_ have it committed to memory.

"Kazumi Sanada, for one," Ginzo tried.

Aoko rolled her eyes. "I already ruled him out! Give me a real suspect other than Kaito!"

"Chikage-san?"

It was a weak attempt, especially for him. "Chikage-obasan already told me he's a guy!"

Ginzo finally put his fork down, meal half finished. "Aoko, I don't know what you want me to tell you. KID could be anyone. Toichi-kun had a lot of students. Some of them were a little too... dedicated to him. He mentioned one woman, what was her name again? Sharon or something. He said she had a 'dark aura,' whatever that means, after the first class but then never said anything about her again. He must have realized that all of his students have got to be at least a little strange to be learning magic at all."

"So you're saying KID could be any of them?"

"Yes," Ginzo agreed. "And I doubt that Sharon woman was the only pupil that ever made him nervous." Ginzo paused. "You told me last night that KID is involved in a bad crowd. My team is fully aware of a crew of snipers that shows up to the occasional heist. This isn't new. It's been happening... for a long time."

"KID told me they killed Toichi-ojisan. Is that true?" She looked at her father's face, hoping to see confusion. _Please, let that have been a lie..._

Instead, she found a look of disappointment. "I always knew something was wrong about that accident. I'm honestly not surprised."

"So," she found herself saying. All the air in her lungs was gone. "Kaito?"

"I really hope not," Ginzo said. "He's a hardheaded kid, but he wouldn't do something this stupid, would he?"

All the information Aoko had accumulated about Kaitou KID in the past lifetime suddenly clicked together. Across the table, Ginzo felt his mind churning just as rapidly.

"Of course not," the laughed in nervous unison, Ginzo already paying the bill and Aoko grabbing her purse up. They laughed and turned to look at each other, faces filled with broad grins and scared eyes. "He's not that stupid!"

It was a silent cab ride home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Conscious denial is apparently a genetic trait in the Nakamori bloodline. They know, but they don't want to know.
> 
> Anyway, we're running into the homestretch here. There's probably going to be loose ends that I forget to tie up, but I've been writing this story for a long time and my life has changed so much during the course of it. There's probably stories I meant to pursue that I set up and never got around to, and there's stories that I just kinda dumped the characters into without giving a good preamble for. It is what it is.


End file.
